this is thy hour o soul, thy free flight into the wordless, away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done, thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best, night, sleep, death and the stars.
Expect nothing, live frugally on surprise. Become a stranger to need of pity. Or if compassion be freely given out, take only enough. Stop short of the urge to plead, then purge away the need. Wish for nothing larger than your own small heart or greater than a star. Tame wild disappointment with caress, unmoved and cold. Make of it a parka for your soul. Discover the reason why so tiny human midget exists at all, so scared and so unwise. But expect nothing, live frugally on surprise.
Sejal had not thought of her home, or of India as a whole, as cool. She was dimly aware, however, of a white Westerner habit of wearing other cultures like T-shirts—the sticker bindis on club kids, sindoor in the hair of an unmarried pop star, Hindi characters inked carelessly on tight tank tops and pale flesh. She knew Americans liked to flash a little Indian or Japanese or African. They were always looking for a little pepper to put in their dish.
Success is an ugly thing. Men are deceived by its false resemblances to merit.... They confound the brilliance of the firmament with the star-shaped footprints of a duck in the mud.
Though our smoke may hide the Heavens from your eyes, It will vanish and the stars will shine again, Because, for all our power and weight and size, We are nothing more than children of your brain!
My mother always seemed to me like a fairy princess: a radiant being possessed of limitless riches and power. She shone for me like the evening star. I loved her dearly.
What can I do to make sure that middle-class families are feeling more secure, that more young people are able to access opportunity, that we are safe, that we are working with our international partners to try to create more order at a time when there's a lot of chaos? How do we deal with terrorism in a way that's consistent with our values? As long as I stay focused on those north stars, then I tend not to get too rattled.
Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me, Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain, Have put on black and loving mourners be, Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain. And truly not the morning sun of heaven Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east, Nor that full star that ushers in the even, Doth half that glory to the sober west, As those two mourning eyes become thy face: O! let it then as well beseem thy heart To mourn for me since mourning doth thee grace, And suit thy pity like in every part. Then will I swear beauty herself is black, And all they foul that thy complexion lack
There is only one thing that a man really wants to do, all his life; and that is, to find his way to his God, his Morning Star, salute his fellow man, and enjoy the woman who has come the long way with him.
Imagine we could accelerate continuously at 1 g-what we're comfortable with on good old terra firma-to the midpoint of our voyage, and decelerate continuously at 1 g until we arrive at our destination. It would take a day to get to Mars, a week and a half to Pluto, a year to the Oort Cloud, and a few years to the nearest stars.
We are all as much extraordinary phenomena of nature as trees, clouds, the patterns in running water, the flickering of fire, the arrangement of the stars and the form of a galaxy.
I suppose I had my rock star fantasies while I was singing into my hairbrush in the bathroom mirror, but I never really consciously said, 'OK, this is what I'm going to do for a living and I'm going to be Weird Al.'
I shall never sleep calmly again when I think of the horrors that lurk ceaselessly behind life in time and in space, and of those unhallowed blasphemies from elder stars which dream beneath the sea, known and favoured by a nightmare cult ready and eager to loose them upon the world whenever another earthquake shall heave their monstrous stone city again to the sun and air.