Still Life With Aspirin Quotes

There she was, the mother of me, like a lit plinth,
Heavenly, though I was reared to find this kind
Of visitation impractical; she was an unbearable detail
Of the supreme celestial map,
Of which I had been taught that there was
No such thing. ~ Lucie Brock-Broido

What makes you come alive? What keeps you going ? Is there hope in your heart still or has the weariness of the world attached itself to you like a limpet leaving you afraid and passionless? Do you wake up with a smile and stars in your eyes after restless, feverish soul-searching in the night? Do you dream, dream beyond what is possible and beyond the narrow confines of your jaded existence? How old do you feel? How much in love can you fall? How much step is there in your dance, o how many notes left in your song ? Have you decided to sit by and watch others dance or weep at the dying notes of your own swan song?

Shake your lethargy. Come alive to innocence once more. Believe past your own jaded cynicism. Pretend you are young once more. Jump up with a spring in your feet, fall breathlessly in love again. Let the colors of the world wash over your walls, brushing the greys away. Let the sunlight of hope flood through your doubting self, o let the music play.

Dance till you ache and drop, laugh till you cry. Sing till your lungs burst, and journey till the very road ends and dream by the moonless starless nights. Sleep with a secret smile on your lips, your body flush with the imprints of lips. Come alive, my dearest ...reclaim yourself from the living dead.

Life beckons ~ Srividya Srinivasan

Trust him. And when you have done that, you are living the life of grace. No matter what happens to you in the course of that trusting - no matter how many waverings you may have, no matter how many suspicions that you have bought a poke with no pig in it, no matter how much heaviness and sadness your lapses, vices, indispositions, and bratty whining may cause you - you believe simply that Somebody Else, by his death and resurrection, has made it all right, and you just say thank you and shut up. The whole slop-closet full of mildewed performances (which is all you have to offer) is simply your death; it is Jesus who is your life. If he refused to condemn you because your works were rotten, he certainly isn't going to flunk you because your faith isn't so hot. You can fail utterly, therefore, and still live the life of grace. You can fold up spiritually, morally, or intellectually and still be safe. Because at the very worst, all you can be is dead - and for him who is the Resurrection and the Life, that just makes you his cup of tea. ~ Robert Farrar Capon

If you remove the negative people from your life, God will bring positive people into it. Is your inner circle of friends holding you back? Are those closest to you with you but not for you? If you find that it takes constant effort to win their support and encouragement, they likely don't understand your destiny.
The Scripture says, "Do not throw your pearls before swine" (Matthew 7:6 NASB). You could say your pearl is your gift, your personality. It's who you are. When you get around true friends, people who really believe in you, they won't be jealous of your gifts. They won't constantly question who you are. They won't try to talk you out of your dreams. It will be just the opposite. They'll help you polish your pearl. They'll give you ideas. They'll connect you with people they know. They'll help push you further along.
Do not waste time with people who don't value your gifts or appreciate what you have to offer. That's casting your pearl before swine. Those closest to you should celebrate who you are and be happy when you succeed. They should believe the very best of you.
If that doesn't describe those in your inner circle, move them out. You can be nice. You can still be friends from a distance. But your time is too valuable to spend with people who are not 100 percent for you. It's not the quantity of friends that's important; it's the quality of friends. ~ Joel Osteen

You're an idiot," Preston says.

"Excuse me?"

"You're an idiot, sir?" he tries again.

"Just tell me how much she likes Dave, Preston. I don't have time for this girly bullshit." Jesus fuck, am I going to have to resort to getting girl advice from my gay assistant? What the hell has my life come to? Sandra has turned everything upside down.

"She doesn't like Dave. She likes you. She's had a crush on you forever and I'm totally breaking girl code telling you any of this."

"Then why the hell is she spending the weekend with Dave?" I ask, ignoring his girl code.

"But you know Sandy's a nice girl. She doesn't know what to make of a guy who fucks her in his office but never asks her to dinner," Preston continues. Apparently girl code is over. "Women are complex creatures, Gabe. They think it means something when a man takes his sweet-ass time asking her on a date. They think it means you're just interested in the sex." He narrows his eyes at me. "Obviously that's not the case here, as based on the way you look at that girl it's clear you're already half in love with her."

I really am getting girl advice from my gay assistant

"Since you know everything, care to tell me where she went with Dave?"

"Marissa's wedding."

"Who the hell is Marissa?"

"Hello? She works here? In sales?"

I shrug. Still no idea who he's talking about.

"You kno ~ Jana Aston

Sit still with me in the shade of these green trees, which have no weightier thought than the withering of their leaves when autumn arrives, or the stretching of their many stiff fingers into the cold sky of the passing winter. Sit still with me and meditate on how useless effort is, how alien the will, and on how our very meditation is no more useful than effort, and no more our own than the will. Meditate too on how a life that wants nothing can have no weight in the flux of things, but a life the wants everything can likewise have no weight in the flux of things, since it cannot obtain everything, and to obtain less than everything is not worthy of souls that seek the truth. ~ Fernando Pessoa

Osiris, to go directly to the important part of this, was not a "dying god," not "life caught in the spell of death," or "a dead god," as modern interpreters have said. He was the hallucinated voice of a dead king whose admonitions could still carry weight. And since he could still be heard, there is no paradox in the fact that the body from which the voice once came should be mummified, with all the equipment of the tomb providing life's necessities: food, drink, slaves, women, the lot. There was no mysterious power that emanated from him; simply his remembered voice which appeared in hallucination to those who had known him and which could admonish or suggest even as it has before he stopped moving and breathing. And that various natural phenomena such as the whispering of waves could act as the cue for such hallucinations accounts for the belief that Osiris, or the king whose body has ceased to move and is in his mummy cloths, continues to control the flooding of the Nile. Further, the relationship between Horus and Osiris, 'embodied' in each new king and his dead father forever, can only be understood as the assimilation of an hallucinated advising voice into the king's own voice, which then would be repeated with the next generation. ~ Julian Jaynes

I came here in a car like everybody else. In a car filled with shit I thought meant something and shortly thereafter tossed on the street: DVDs, soon to be irrelevant, a box of digital and film cameras for a still-latent photography talent, a copy of On the Road that I couldn't finish, and a Swedish-modern lamp from Walmart. It was a long, dark drive from a place so small you couldn't find it on a generous map...Does anyone come to New York clean? I'm afraid not….Yes, I'd come to escape, but from what? The twin pillars of football and church? The low, faded homes on childless cul-de-sacs? Morning of the Gazette and boxed doughnuts? The sedated, sentimental middle of it? It didn't matter. I would never know exactly, for my life, like most, moved only imperceptibly and definitely forward...Let's say I was born in late June of 2006 when I came over the George Washington Bridge at seven a.m. with the sun circulating and dawning, the sky full of sharp corners of light, before the exhaust rose, before the heat gridlocked in, windows unrolled, radio turned up to some impossibly hopeful pop song, open, open, open. ~ Stephanie Danler

There was our old life, in the apartment, in which we had time to finish most of the tasks we started and took long showers and remembered to water our plants. And there was our new life, in the hospital a mile away, in which Shauna needed morphine and two babies needed to eat every three hours around the clock ... I remember thinking, we're going to have to figure out how to combine our old life with our new life ... Over a year later, we still have days of mind-crushing fatigue, midnights when I think I'm pouring milk into a bottle but am actually pouring it all over the counter. Yesterday I spent five minutes trying to remember my parents' zip code. But now there are mornings like this one, when we wake up and realize we've slept through the entire night, and we stroll through the gardens as if we are normal again, as if we are finally learning the syllables of this strange, new language. ~ Anthony Doerr

There is a road in the hearts of all of us, hidden and seldom traveled, which leads to an unkown, secret place. The old people came literally to love the soil, and they sat or reclined on the ground with a feeling of being close to a mothering power. Their teepees were built upon the earth and their altars were made of earth. The soul was soothing, strengthening, cleansing, and healing. That is why the old Indian still sits upon the earth instead of propping himself up and away from its life giving forces. For him, to sit or lie upon the ground is to be able to think more deeply and to feel more keenly. He can see more clearly into the mysteries of life and come closer in kinship to other lives about him. ~ Luther Standing Bear

Sometimes I wish we met when we were 27. 27 sounds like a good age to meet the person you're going to spend the rest of your life with. At 27, you are still young, but hopefully you are well on your way to being the you you want to be. ~ Jenny Han

Any half-awake materialist well knows - that which you hold holds you. ~ Tom Robbins

The Knowing

Afterwards, when we have slept, paradise-
comaed and woken, we lie a long time
looking at each other.
I do not know what he sees, but I see
eyes of surpassing tenderness
and calm, a calm like the dignity
of matter. I love the open ocean
blue-grey-green of his iris, I love
the curve of it against the white,
that curve the sight of what has caused me
to come, when he's quite still, deep
inside me. I have never seen a curve
like that, except the earth from outer
space. I don't know where he got
his kindness without self-regard,
almost without self, and yet
he chose one woman, instead of the others.

By knowing him, I get to know
the purity of the animal
which mates for life. Sometimes he is slightly
smiling, but mostly he just gazes at me gazing,
his entire face lit. I love
to see it change if I cry–there is no worry,
no pity, no graver radiance. If we
are on our backs, side by side,
with our faces turned fully to face each other,
I can hear a tear from my lower eye
hit the sheet, as if it is an early day on earth,
and then the upper eye's tears
braid and sluice down through the lower eyebrow
like the invention of farmimg, irrigation, a non-nomadic people.

I am so lucky that I can know him.
This is the only way to know him.
I am the only one who knows h ~ Sharon Olds

In Paris in the 1950s, I had the supreme good fortune to study with a remarkably able group of chefs. From them I learned why good French good is an art, and why it makes such sublime eating: nothing is too much trouble if it turns out the way it should. Good results require that one take time and care. If one doesn't use the freshest ingredients or read the whole recipe before starting, and if one rushes through the cooking, the result will be an inferior taste and texture--a gummy beef Wellington, say. But a careful approach will result in a magnificent burst of flavor, a thoroughly satisfying meal, perhaps even a life-changing experience.

Such was the case with the sole meunière I ate at La Couronne on my first day in France, in November 1948. It was an epiphany.

In all the years since the succulent meal, I have yet to lose the feelings of wonder and excitement that it inspired in me. I can still almost taste it. And thinking back on it now reminds me that the pleasures of table, and of life, are infinite--toujours bon appétit! ~ Julia Child

We have become so trusting of technology that we have lost faith in ourselves and our born instincts. There are still parts of life that we do not need to "better" with technology. It's important to understand that you are smarter than your smartphone. To paraphrase, there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your Google. Mistakes are a part of life and often the path to profound new insights - so why try to remove them completely? Getting lost while driving or visiting a new city used to be an adventure and a good story. Now we just follow the GPS. ~ Jocelyn K. Glei

Over the past years, God has challenged me and empowered me to change. And never in my history with God have I received more blatant approval from Him over a newly directed approach. I still research the Word with the same fervor and pursue sound scholarship, but now I intentionally add my faith to it. In other words, I actively say, "God infuse these words not only into my heart and mind but also into the marrow of my belief system. Bring these words to life in me today. Help me not only to learn them but also to walk by faith in them. Help me believe You. ~ Beth Moore

And as much as I wanted to, I knew I couldn't turn around, that to look at her directly was to violate the laws of her world and mine; she had come to me the only way she could, and our eyes met in the glass for a long still moment; but just as she seemed about to speak - with what seemed a combination of amusement, affection, exasperation - a vapor rolled between us and I woke up. ~ Donna Tartt

Suddenly an unexpected series of sounds began to be heard in this place up against the starry sky. They were the notes of Oak´s flute. It came from the direction of a small dark object under the hedge - a shephard´s hut - now presenting an outline to which an unintiated person might have been puzzled to attach either meaning or use. ... Being a man not without a frequent consciousness that there was some charm in this life he led, he stood still after looking at the sky as a useful instrument, and regarded it in an appreciative spirit, as a work of art superlatively beautiful. For a moment he seemed impressed with the speaking loneliness of the scene, or rather with the complete abstraction from all its compass of the sights and sounds of man. ... Oak´s motions, though they had a quiet energy, were slow, and their deliberateness accorded well with his occupation. Fitness being the basis of beauty, nobody could have denied tha his steady swings and turns in and about the flock had elements of grace. His special power, morally, physically, and mentally, was static. ... Oak was an intensely human man: indee, his humanity tore in pieces any politic intentions of his which bordered on strategy, and carried him on as by gravitation. A shadow in his life had always been that his flock should end in mutton - that a day could find a shepherd an arrant traitor to his gentle sheep. ~ Thomas Hardy

I'm a great admirer of Primo Levi's work. It's always mind-boggling, the idea of how much pain people can endure and still come back from the edge with a sense of humor, with this tremendous animal desire we have to get on with life. ~ Allan Gurganus

I cannot understand why we idle discussing religion. If we are honest - and scientists have to be - we must admit that religion is a jumble of false assertions, with no basis in reality. The very idea of God is a product of the human imagination. It is quite understandable why primitive people, who were so much more exposed to the overpowering forces of nature than we are today, should have personified these forces in fear and trembling. But nowadays, when we understand so many natural processes, we have no need for such solutions. I can't for the life of me see how the postulate of an Almighty God helps us in any way. What I do see is that this assumption leads to such unproductive questions as why God allows so much misery and injustice, the exploitation of the poor by the rich and all the other horrors He might have prevented. If religion is still being taught, it is by no means because its ideas still convince us, but simply because some of us want to keep the lower classes quiet. Quiet people are much easier to govern than clamorous and dissatisfied ones. They are also much easier to exploit. Religion is a kind of opium that allows a nation to lull itself into wishful dreams and so forget the injustices that are being perpetrated against the people. Hence the close alliance between those two great political forces, the State and the Church. Both need the illusion that a kindly God rewards - in heaven if not on earth - all those who have not risen up against injustice, wh ~ Paul A.M. Dirac

The point that apocalyptic makes is not only that people who wear crowns and who claim to foster justice by the sword are not as strong as they think--true as that is: we still sing, 'O where are Kings and Empires now of old that went and came?' It is that people who bear crosses are working with the grain of the universe. One does not come to that belief by reducing social processes to mechanical and statistical models, nor by winning some of one's battles for the control of one's own corner of the fallen world. One comes to it by sharing the life of those who sing about the Resurrection of the slain Lamb. ~ John Howard Yoder

I currently take Lortab, which is a combination of acetaminophen and hydrocodone. I'd rather not take this medication, or any medication for that matter, but it is the only one that controls my pain adequately enough to allow me to function on a daily basis... I take the smallest dose possible to enable me to remain as clear-headed as possible to do what I need to do each day...

Even with the minimal opioids I take, I still have pain all the time, 24 hours a day; without opioids, life would be torture. ~ Alison Moore

I remember, in hot floods, the way he slept, still as death, with his face washed flat, stony as a carved tomb and exquisite. His weakness and his ravening bitter needs were terrible, and beautiful, and irresistible as an earthquake. He scalded or smothered anyone he needed, but his needing and the hurt that it caused me were the most life I have ever had. Remember what a poor thing I have always been and forgive me. ~ Katherine Dunn

Stendhal knows the source of his greatest happiness and his worst misery: the reflexivity of his spiritual life. When he loves, enjoys beauty, feels free and unconstrained, he realizes not only the bliss of these feelings but, at the same time, the happiness of being aware of this happiness. But now that he ought to be completely absorbed by his happiness and feel redeemed from all his limitations and inadequacies, he is still full of problems and doubts: Is that the whole story? - he asks himself. Is that what they call love? Is it possible to love, to feel, to be delighted and yet to observe oneself so coolly and so calmly? Stendhal's answer is by no means the usual one, which assumes the existence of an insurmountable gulf between feeling and reason, passion and reflexion, love and ambition, but is based on the assumption that modern man simply feels differently, is enraptured and enthusiastic differently from a contemporary of Racine or Rousseau. For them, spontaneity and reflexivity of the emotions were incompatible, for Stendhal and his heroes they are quite inseparable; none of their passions is so strong as the desire to be constantly calling themselves to account for what is going on inside them. Compared with the older literature, this self consciousness implies just as profound a change as Stendhal's realism, and the overcoming of classical-romantic psychology is just as strictly one of the preconditions of his art as the abolition of the alternative between the ro ~ Arnold Hauser

And quit saying my name like that!"
"Like what, Jillian?" He sounded genuinely curious.
"Like . . . like . . . a prayer or something."
"As you wish." He paused the length of two heartbeats--during which she was astonished he'd capitulated to her will, because he certainly never had before--then he added with such husky resonance that it slipped inside her heart without her consent, "Jillian."
Perish the man! "Guards. Guards!"
Her guards arrived on a run, then halted abruptly, studying the man standing before their mistress.
"Milady, you summoned?" Hatchard inquired.
"Remove this iniquitous scoundrel from Caithness before he breeds . . . bring"--she corrected herself hastily--"his depravity and wicked insolence into my home," she sputtered to a finish.
The guards looked from her to Grimm and didn't move.
"Now. Remove him from the estate at once!"
When the guards still didn't move, her temper rose a notch. "Hatchard, I said make him leave. By the sweet saints, toss him out of my life. Banish him from the country. Och! Just remove him from this world, will you, now?"
The flank of guards stared at Jillian with openmouthed astonishment. "Are you feeling well, milady?" Hatchard asked. "Should we fetch Kaley to see if you've a touch of the fever?"
"I don't have a touch of anything. There's a degenerate knave on my estate and I want him off it," Jillian said through gritted teeth.
"Did you just grit?" Hatchard gaped.
Karen Marie Moning

I do mistakes. You do mistakes. Still we end up with a warm hug. That's you. That's me. ~ Anuj Tiwari

I was dead
I came alive
I was tears
I became laughter

All because of love
when it arrived
my temporal life
from then on
changed to eternal

Love said to me
you are not
crazy enough
you don't
fit this house

I went and
became crazy
crazy enough
to be in chains

Love said
you are not
intoxicated enough
you don't
fit the group

I went and
got drunk
drunk enough
to overflow
with light-headedness

Love said
you are still
too clever
filled with
imagination and skepticism

I went and
became gullible
and in fright
pulled away
from it all

Love said
you are a candle
attracting everyone
gathering every one
around you

I am no more
a candle spreading light
I gather no more crowds
and like smoke
I am all scattered now

Love said
you are a teacher
you are a head
and for everyone
you are a leader

I am no more
not a teacher
not a leader
just a servant
to your wishes

Love said
you already have
your own wings
I will not give you
more feathers

And then my heart
pulled itself apart
and filled to the brim
with a new light
overflowed with fresh life

Now even the heavens
are thankful t ~ Rumi

People say that having three orchestras is a crazy life, but it's better because you have three families. I want to have my own kids very soon. In future, I still want to conduct a lot, but less, to be with my family. ~ Gustavo Dudamel

How often do our heroes stand still? It's hard to imagine Spock and Kirk landing on a planet and just relaxing for a month or two. Just hanging out has nothing to do with boldly going where no one has gone before. What makes us different from every other creature is that we go places, places we've not gone before. We do it willingly, and often. What makes our work and our life interesting is discovery, surprise, and the risk of exploration. ~ Seth Godin

Everybody remembers numbers and computers remember numbers. People remember procedures and computers certainly remember procedures. But the other thing that's still important is that your perception as a human is affected subtly by all this stuff that you can't quite articulate. You run your life according to all this stuff that's happened to you. All of your memories affect everything you do whereas with a computer, there's adaptive software and things, but it's more literal. ~ Bill Nye

A Hard Life With Memory

I'm a poor audience for my memory.
She wants me to attend her voice nonstop,
but I fidget, fuss,
listen and don't,
step out, come back, then leave again.

She wants all my time and attention.
She's got no problem when I sleep.
The day's a different matter, which upsets her.

She thrusts old letters, snapshots at me eagerly,
stirs up events both important and un-,
turns my eyes to overlooked views,
peoples them with my dead.

In her stories I'm always younger.
Which is nice, but why always the same story.
Every mirror holds different news for me.

She gets angry when I shrug my shoulders.
And takes revenge by hauling out old errors,
weighty, but easily forgotten.
Looks into my eyes, checks my reaction.
Then comforts me, it could be worse.

She wants me to live only for her and with her.
Ideally in a dark, locked room,
but my plans still feature today's sun,
clouds in progress, ongoing roads.

At times I get fed up with her.
I suggest a separation. From now to eternity.
Then she smiles at me with pity,
since she knows it would be the end of me too. ~ Wisława Szymborska

I'm going to have to start booking you guys a month in advance."
"Or you could invite Ms. Rothschild over," Kitty suggests. "Her weekends are pretty lonely too."
He gives her a funny look. "I'm sure she has plenty she'd rather do than watch The Sound of Music with her neighbor."
Brightly I say, "Don't forget the tacos al pastor! Those are a draw, too. And you, of course. You're a draw."
"You're definitely a draw," Kitty pipes up.
"Guys," Daddy begins.
"Wait," I say. "Let me just say one thing. You should be going on some dates, Daddy."
"I go on dates!"
"You've gone on, like, two dates ever," I say, and he falls silent. "Why not ask Ms. Rothschild out? She's cute, she has a good job, Kitty loves her. And she lives really close by."
"See, that's exactly why I shouldn't ask her out," Daddy says. "You should never date a neighbor or a coworker, because then you'll have to keep seeing them if things don't work out."
Kitty asks, "You mean like that quote 'Don't shit where you eat'?" When Daddy frowns, Kitty quickly corrects herself. "I mean 'Don't poop where you eat.' That's what you mean, right, Daddy?"
"Yes, I suppose that's what I mean, but Kitty, I don't like you using cuss words."
Contritely she says, "I'm sorry. But I still think you should give Ms. Rothschild a chance. If it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out."
"Well, I'd hate to see you get your hopes up," Daddy says.
"That's life," Kitty says. "Things ~ Jenny Han

The people at home," I said. "A lot of them call me an apple."

Do they think you're a fruit or something?" he asked.

No, no," I said. "They call me an apple because they think I'm red on the outside and white on the inside."

Ah, so they think you're a traitor."

Yep."

Well, life is a constant struggle between being an individual and being a member of the community."

Can you believe there is a kid who talks like that? Like he's already a college professor impressed with the sound of his own voice?

Gordy," I said. "I don't understand what you're trying to say to me."

Well, in the early days of humans, the community was our only protection against predators, and against starvation. We survived because we trusted one another."

So?"

So, back in the day, weird people threatened the strength of the tribe. If you weren't good for making food, shelter, or babies, then you were tossed out on your own."

But we're not primitive like that anymore."

Oh, yes, we are. Weird people still get banished."

You mean weird people like me," I said.

And me," Gordy said.

All right, then," I said. "So we have a tribe of two."

I had the sudden urge to hug Gordy, and he had the sudden urge to prevent me from hugging him.

Don't get sentimental," he said.

Yep, even the weird boys are afraid of their emotions. ~ Sherman Alexie

Where lies the strangling fruit that came from the hand of the sinner I shall bring forth the seeds of the dead to share with the worms that gather in the darkness and surround the world with the power of their lives while from the dimlit halls of other places forms that never were and never could be writhe for the impatience of the few who never saw what could have been. In the black water with the sun shining at midnight, those fruit shall come ripe and in the darkness of that which is golden shall split open to reveal the revelation of the fatal softness in the earth. The shadows of the abyss are like the petals of a monstrous flower that shall blossom within the skull and expand the mind beyond what any man can bear, but whether it decays under the earth or above on green fields, or out to sea or in the very air, all shall come to revelation, and to revel, in the knowledge of the strangling fruit - and the hand of the sinner shall rejoice, for there is no sin in shadow or in light that the seeds of the dead cannot forgive. And there shall be in the planting in the shadows a grace and a mercy from which shall blossom dark flowers, and their teeth shall devour and sustain and herald the passing of an age. That which dies shall still know life in death for all that decays is not forgotten and reanimated it shall walk the world in the bliss of not-knowing. And then there shall be a fire that knows the naming of you, and in the presence of the strangling fruit, its dark flame ~ Jeff VanderMeer

But it is not so simple as to merely blame the Communists for Poland's state of denial (of World War II atrocities and heroes)Curiously, it has been more than 10 years since democracy has returned to Poland and rescuers are still not publicly celebrated, because of another kind of occupation-our own shame. It is never easy to look at oneself in the mirror of history and see cowardice and barbarity. Those who were brave, those who acted with integrity and decency, hold up another mirror for all Poles to gave into. ~ Zofia Zaks

ALEXEY Fyodorovitch Karamazov was the third son of Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov, a landowner well known in our district in his own day, and still remembered among us owing to his gloomy and tragic death, which happened thirteen years ago, and which I shall describe in its proper place. For the present I will only say that this "landowner"- for so we used to call him, although he hardly spent a day of his life on his own estate- was a strange type, yet one pretty frequently to be met with, a type abject and vicious and at the same time senseless. But he was one of those senseless persons who are very well capable of looking after their worldly affairs, and, apparently, after nothing else. Fyodor Pavlovitch, for instance, began with next to nothing; his estate was of the smallest; he ran to dine at other men's tables, and fastened on them as a toady, yet at his death it appeared that he had a hundred thousand roubles in hard cash. At the same time, he was all his life one of the most senseless, fantastical fellows in the whole district. I repeat, it was not stupidity- the majority of these fantastical fellows are shrewd and intelligent enough- but just senselessness, and a peculiar national form of it. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I tell you, I cannot. I could not lead a virtuous life if I would. I should only disgrace you. If you will know all," said she, as he still seemed inclined to urge her, "I must have drink. Such as live like me could not bear life if they did not drink. It's the only thing to keep us from suicide. If we did not drink, we could not stand the memory of what we have been, and the thought of what we are, for a day. If I go without food, and without shelter, I must have my dram. Oh! you don't know the awful nights I have had in prison for want of it," said she, shuddering, and glaring round with terrified eyes, as if dreading to see some spiritual creature, with dim form, near her. ~ Elizabeth Gaskell