The House Of Sleep Quotes

Your gravity, your grace have turned a tide
In me, no lunar power can reverse;
But in your narcoleptic eyes I spied
A sightlessness tonight: or something worse,
A disregard that made me feel unmanned.
Meanwhile, insomniac, I catch my breath
To think I saw my future traced in sand
One afternoon "as still, as carved, as death,"
And pray for an oblivion so deep
It ends in transformation. Only dawn
Can save me, flood this haunted house of sleep
With light, and drown the thoughts that nightly warn:
Another lifetime is the least you'll need, to trace
The guarded secrets of her gravity, her grace. ~ Jonathan Coe

Intelligence is a tenant in the house of wisdom.
Knowledge is a tenant in the house of nature.
Insight is a tenant in the house of understanding.
Wealth is a tenant in the house of risk.
Mastery is a tenant in the house of discipline.
Patience is a tenant in the house of virtue.
Tolerance is a tenant in the house of freedom.
Awareness is a tenant in the house of experience.
Rest is a tenant in the house of sleep.
Laughter is a tenant in the house of joy.
Hope is a tenant in the house of faith.
Contentment is a tenant in the house of peace.
Kindness is a tenant in the house of love.
Harmony is a tenant in the house of order.
Humility is a tenant in the house of honor.
Caution is a tenant in the house of prudence.
Speech is a tenant in the house of silence.
Certainty is a tenant in the house of conviction.
Expectation is a tenant in the house of desire.
Need is a tenant in the house of want.
Truth is a tenant in the house of reality.
Chance is a tenant in the house of fate.
Time is a tenant in the house of eternity.
Life is a tenant in the house of death.
Nature is a tenant in the house of God. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

My vantage point must have been somewhere between our little house and the steamer jetty. The sea was exceptionally calm. Lit up by a sun that you could have taken down and put in your knapsack. Everything: Mooring rings on the harbor wall, piles of timber, the arches of the houses, caiques, windows – all of them were faithful, in the way we describe a dog being faithful. ~ Yorgos Seferis

James closed the door and turned the radio on. He didn't particularly want to listen to it but he needed the privacy it provided. Not that Hadrian seemed like he would have noticed anything happening around him that wasn't directly relevant to his cooking, but privacy was a feeling more than a real state of being. Growing up in a house where superhearing was the norm, music had been the standard way in which one made the fact that there were solid walls and doors between one and the rest of the household count for something. ~ Aska J. Naiman

She considered him further and decided he could definitely pass for a pirate. No, she thought, correcting herself. More like a sea captain, a younger version of the captain from that old movie where the pretty woman rents an old sea captain's house only to find the place haunted by the sea captain himself.
She let out a heavy breath. Man, she loved that movie. ~ Madison Thorne Grey

We ought not to be looking for something spectacular but rather develop a plan in conjunction with the White House to work our way out of this problem over the next six weeks. ~ Robert Teeter

A young girl, a frailty, simple and true, who had been unable to stand up from the piano and had had to be carried; a girl half his age; a girl who could not shoot a gun, had never been in an oyster house, atop a tower, or under the wharves; a girl hotter always than noon in August; a girl who knew nothing; had thrown him so hard that he would be out of breath forever. ~ Mark Helprin

I doubt it's a strictly factual account, but these attitudes are deeply imbedded.
Which means that our only hope of changing them, of ending the wrecks, lies not in stopping or even changing the Internet -- even with the best blocking functions, report-abuse functions, real-name transparency protocols, and twenty-four-hour moderation in the world, hate (to quite Jurassic Park) finds a way -- but in changing ourselves, and our definitions of womanhood. We have to stop believing that when a woman does something we don't like, we are qualified and entitled to punish her, violate her, or ruin her life. We have to change our ideas of what a "good" woman, or a "likable" woman, or simply a "woman who can leave her house without fearing for her life because she is a woman," can be. ~ Sady Doyle

When you're a kid, the world can be bounded in a nutshell. In geographical terms, a child's universe is a space that comprises home, school and - possibly - the neighbourhood where your cousins or your grandparents live. In my case, the universe sat comfortably within a small area of Flores that ran from the junction of Boyacá and Avellaneda (my house), to the Plaza Flores (my school). My only forays beyond the area were when we went on holiday (to Córdoba or Bariloche or to the beach) or occasional, increasingly rare visits to my grandparents' farm in Dorrego, in the province of Buenos Aires.

We get our fist glimpse of the big wide world from those we love unconditionally. If we see our elders suffer because they cannot get a job, or see them demoted, or working for a pittance, our compassion translates these observations and we conclude that the world outside is cruel and brutal. (This is politics.) If we hear our parents bad-mouthing certain politicians and agreeing with their opponents, our compassion translates these observations and we conclude that the former are bad guys and the latter are good guys. (This is politics.) If we observe palpable fear in our parents at the very sight of soldiers and policemen, our compassion translates our observations and we conclude that, though all children have bogeymen, ours wear uniforms. (This is politics.) ~ Marcelo Figueras

What does hanging on a cross for twenty-four hours mean to a man who has no children,' I said, 'especially when he knows he's dying for a good cause -- indeed, that he's saving the whole world and then going straight into the best place in Heaven? What's that compared to the suffering I've had to put up with for months and years with the house full of children, when for many whole nights I've shrieked with pain unceasingly and without relief, and I'll soon be dead, and that without having anything to die for; and there'll be no heavenly Kingdom for me, for I know the children will go on crying when I'm dead, and swearing and quarrelling, and begging for milk they can't get. ~ Halldor Laxness

If Todd [Willingham] was guilty of anything, it was just his self-preservation. He got up and ran out of the house and then thought about the children after the fact. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

And an old priest said, Speak to us of Religion.
And he said:
Who can separate his faith from his actions?
Who can spread his hours before him, saying, "This for God and this for myself; This for my soul, and this other for my body?" ...
He who wears his morality but as his best garment were better naked ...
And he to whom worshiping is a window, to open but also to shut, has not yet visited the house of his soul ... ~ Kahlil Gibran

The design of good houses requires an understanding of both the construction materials and the behavior of real humans. ~ Peter Morville

You have not been yourself all day," said Henry, and rose from his seat with face unmoved. Margaret rushed at him and seized both his hands. She was transfigured.
"Not any more of this!" she cried. "You shall see the connection if it kills you, Henry! You have had a mistress - I forgave you. My sister has a lover - you drive her from the house. Do you see the connection? Stupid, hypocritical, cruel - oh, contemptible! - a man who insults his wife when she's alive and cants with her memory when she's dead. A man who ruins a woman for his pleasure, and casts her off to ruin other men. And gives bad financial advice, and then says he is not responsible. These men are you. You can't recognise them, because you cannot connect. I've had enough of your unneeded kindness. I've spoilt you long enough. All your life you have been spoiled. Mrs. Wilcox spoiled you. No one has ever told what you are - muddled, criminally muddled. Men like you use repentance as a blind, so don't repent. Only say to yourself, 'What Helen has done, I've done. ~ E.M. Forster

We are in this life as it were in another man's house ... In heaven is our home, in the world is our Inn: do not so entertain thyself in the Inn of this world for a day as to have thy mind withdrawn from longing after thy heavenly home. ~ Gerhard

No sensible person ever opens the door of his house without knowing who is knocking. ~ Jeff Cooper

I'll accompany you too, fair lady," said Reven. "I would fain meet your grandmother."
"You would what?" said Elfwyn.
"He means he'd like to," said Jinx. Some of the books in Simon's house used old-fashioned words like that. ~ Sage Blackwood

The Professor made no reply to this. Lillian had been fiercely jealous of Tom Outland. As he left the house, he was reflecting that people who are intensely in love when they marry, and who go on being in love, always meet with something which suddenly or gradually makes a difference. Sometimes it is the children, or the grubbiness of being poor, sometimes a second infatuation. In their own case it had been, curiously enough, his pupil, Tom Outland. St. ~ Willa Cather

Lack of courage or means often deters the European woman from more independent business activity, and this in spite of increasing freedom to choose her occupation, in spite of brilliant examples of successful undertakings of women, in photography, hotel or boarding-house management, dress-making, etc. ~ Ellen Key

This one sounds rather gay. A Fresno, California house burglar rubbed spices over the body of a sleeping man before using an 8 inch long sausage to slap the face of another snoozing resident. Antonio Vasquez fled but was caught in a nearby field after police found his wallet and ID in the victims' home. The sausage was eaten by a dog after Vasquez tossed it away. ~ Leonard Birdsong

I'm cap'n here by 'lection. I'm cap'n here because I'm the best man by a long sea-mile. You won't fight, as gentlemen o' fortune should; then, by thunder, you'll obey, and you may lay to it! I like that boy, now; I never seen a better boy than that. He's more a man than any pair of rats of you in this here house, and what I say is this: let me see him that'll lay a hand on him
that's what I say, and you may lay to it. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

Oh, he was detestable! She swung round on her heel and marched into the house. She
grabbed hold of the door to shut it with a bang, but the hook which held it open was too
heavy for her. She struggled with it, panting.
"May I help you?" he asked.
Feeling that she would burst a blood vessel if she stayed another minute, she stormed
up the stairs. And as she reached the upper floor, she heard him obligingly slam the door
for her. ~ Margaret Mitchell

Politically, I have a lot of differences with many I encounter here. When visiting the homes of reactionary friends and neighbors, I enjoy hiding their copies of books by Glenn Beck and other lunatics around the house while my hosts cook or adjourn to relieve themselves. Ducking into a garage to deposit the latest ravings of Ann Coulter into a bag of aging peat moss lifts the spirit as unfailingly as a summer tent revival. But I am trying to behave. I ~ George Hodgman

When his bravery at the Battle of Hogwarts was publicised, his actions (along with those of Regulus Black, which gained attention in the aftermath of Voldemort's demise) removed much of the stigma that had been attached to Slytherin house for hundreds of years past. Though now (permanently) retired, his portrait has a place of honour in the Slytherin common room. ~ J.K. Rowling

Furthermore, I refuse to be affected by these cheap theatrics!" She gestured to the boiling sky.
"Gor!" Shelton covered his eyes with one hand.
Dougal instantly went from mad to furious, and the clouds rumbled to life. Yet in that instant, he realized that this tiny little bit of a woman had just reduced centuries of a dramatic and secretive curse to "cheap theatrics." He didn't know whether to rage or laugh, but somehow, looking up into her amazing blue eyes, laughter was beginning to win.
"Furthermore," she continued in high dudgeon, "I won't be cowed by a few damned drops of rain!"
Shelton groaned loudly. "Law,here it comes now."
But it didn't. Instead, a chuckle rippled through Dougal.
Sophia appeared outraged. "Are you laughing at me?"
"No,sweetheart. I'm laughing at us. We cannot even ride from the field to the house without racing. We're doomed to challenge each other forever,and if we don't have a care, my temper will try the two of us like sausages over a spit."
Her lips quivered in response. "I don't particularly care for that image."
"I haven't time for elegance, my love. It is getting ready to rain, so sausages are all you'll get. ~ Karen Hawkins

She overcame a moment of hesitation and glanced at Jared. All the lights in his crazy gray eyes were dancing. A shiver went through her, a ripple of his delight. She felt again the way she had at the Crying Pools and at her house, the thrill of sharing your secret soul and having someone think it was wonderful. ~ Sarah Rees Brennan

When a woman enters my house, a tunnel of books welcomes her, a carnival of heroes bounces from every corner, and I lead her straight through the welcoming applause of writers and mice. ~ Rawi Hage

The portraits, of more historical than artistic interest, had gone; and tapestry, full of the blue and bronze of peacocks, fell over the doors, and shut out all history and activity untouched with beauty and peace; and now when I looked at my Crevelli and pondered on the rose in the hand of the Virgin, wherein the form was so delicate and precise that it seemed more like a thought than a flower, or at the grey dawn and rapturous faces of my Francesca, I knew all a Christian's ecstasy without his slavery to rule and custom; when I pondered over the antique bronze gods and goddesses, which I had mortgaged my house to buy, I had all a pagan's delight in various beauty and without his terror at sleepless destiny and his labour with many sacrifices; and I had only to go to my bookshelf, where every book was bound in leather, stamped with intricate ornament, and of a carefully chosen colour: Shakespeare in the orange of the glory of the world, Dante in the dull red of his anger, Milton in the blue grey of his formal calm; and I could experience what I would of human passions without their bitterness and without satiety. I had gathered about me all gods because I believed in none, and experienced every pleasure because I gave myself to none, but held myself apart, individual, indissoluble, a mirror of polished steel: I looked in the triumph of this imagination at the birds of Hera, glowing in the firelight as though they were wrought of jewels; and to my mind, for which symbolism wa ~ W.B. Yeats

I'm having a stress flashback." Davy bonked his head on the table. "My brother has decided to break into the house of the richest guy in the county and seduce his sexpot daughter, under his nose."
"I'm not going to seduce her," Sean said crabbily. "I'd go through the front door and talk to her right in front of her mother if I could, but those people think I'm festering sewage sludge."
"No. They think you're dangerous, mentally unhinged festering sewage sludge," Davy corrected. ~ Shannon McKenna

How beautiful the house was with
its magnolia trees lining the drive,
their branches outstretched as if they
were beckoning him inside. Rose tipped
blossoms caught the last of the sun's
golden light, giving the flowers
an ethereal glow that shimmered
and looked magical. ~ Ellen Read

A gentleman of ambition is aware of the people he wishes to be associated with both socially and commercially. He knows that moving through different levels of society is akin to stepping through different rooms in an enormous house, each door leading to a grander environment than the last. He may, of course, settle for the comfort of any room he reaches. Alternatively, he may continue through successive doors to surround himself with even greater fineries and riches. ~ Chris Murray

He dipped the quill into the inkpot, leaned over the first parchment, paused, looked up. "Would you prefer me to sing Yollo or Hugor Hill?"

Brown Ben crinkled up his eyes. "Would you prefer to be returned to Yezzan's heirs or just beheaded?"

The dwarf laughed and signed the parchment, Tyrion of House Lannister. ~ George R R Martin

It is nice that what eventually became the late British Empire has not been ruled by an 'English' dynasty since the early eleventh century: since then a motley parade of Normans (Plantagenets), Welsh (Tudors), Scots (Stuarts), Dutch (House of Orange) and Germans (Hanoverians) have squatted on the imperial throne. No one much cared until the philological revolution and a paroxysm of English nationalism in World War I. House of Windsor rhymes with House of Schönbrunn or House of Versailes. ~ Benedict Anderson

[Man] is the only animal who lives outside of himself, whose drive is in external things - property, houses, money, concepts of power. He lives in his cities and his factories, in his business and job and art. But having projected himself into these external complexities, he is them. His house, his automobile are a part of him and a large part of him. This is beautifully demonstrated by a thing doctors know - that when a man loses his possessions a very common result is sexual impotence. ~ John Steinbeck

It has often been noted that three major revolutions in thought have threatened the idea of human centrality. First, Copernicus demonstrated that Earth was not the center about which all celestial bodies revolved. Next, Darwin showed us that we were not central in the chain of life but, like all other creatures, had evolved from other life-forms. Third, Freud demonstrated that we are not masters in our own house-that much of our behavior is governed by forced outside of our consciousness. There is no doubt that Freud's unacknowledged co-revolutionary was Arthur Schopenhauer, who, long before Freud's birth, had posited that we are governed by deep biological forced and then delude ourselves into thinking that we consciously choose our activities. ~ Irvin D. Yalom

So he is putting down junk and coming on with tea. I take three drags, Jane looked at him and her flesh crystallized. I leaped up screaming "I got the fear!" and ran out of the house. Drank a beer in a little restaurant - mosaic bar and soccer scores and bullfight posters - and waited for the bus to town.

A year later in Tangier I heard she was dead. ~ William S. Burroughs

I had always found comfort in the leaves, in their silence. They were like a parchment that holds words of wisdom. Simply holding them in my hand gave me some of the peace a tree possesses. To be like that-to just be-that's the most noble thing of all. ~ Silas House