Quotes from Jean Hegland

Anything we think we know about a situation or someone else or even ourselves is always limited by that old trap, point of view. Just as we are all of us stuck in time, so we are also stuck inside ourselves, doomed to live and die inside our own thick skulls. "As

We can never see our own faces directly, never look straight into our own eyes.

Despite her way with fire, Eva always makes me think of water. She's slender and sparkling as the stream beyond our clearing, and like that stream she seems content to live a part of her life underground, seems sure - even now - that she is headed somewhere.

It came to me then that I could take comfort in knowing my father and my mother were dead, that death's mystery had already embraced them. They had gone on ahead, had broken the trail, and because of that, death seemed a little cozier, a little safer, a little less terrifying. Because my parents were already there - in death - I saw I could afford to enjoy the sunlight for as long as I possibly could. Sitting beside my father's grave, I was glad - and proud - to be alive.

Guys were first effigies, then urchins. But always male

Une fois de plus, ma soeur m'a empêchée d'aller où je voulais.

It is the size of the characters' desires that helps to make a sad story a tragedy.

he explains that tragedy's most cruel lesson is not that human beings are flawed, or that fate can be unkind, but that no one can ever slip the bonds of time. Outside

And humanism—that transcendent vision that spans centuries and religions in its celebration of reason, responsibility, art, and examined lives—has been tossed out like old bathwater, leaving humanity naked and shivering on the dirty ground. He

The walls inside were charred from some ancient fire, blackened and lichened and weathered hard, smelling faintly of a smoke so old there may be no one still alive who could possibly remember the flame.

Or if there were a sympathy in choice, War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it, Making it momentary as a sound Swift as a shadow, short as any dream Brief as the lightening in the collied night, That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth; And ere a man hath power to say "Behold!" The jaws of darkness do devour it up: So quick bright things come to confusion.'" "Brava!

Thou wouldst not think how ill all's here about my heart Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth I have of late—but wherefore I know not—lost all my mirth So

Pourtant, il y a une lucidité qui nous vient parfois dans ces moments-là, quand on se surprend à regarder le monde à travers ses larmes, comme si elles servaient de lentilles pour rendre plus net ce que l'on regarde.

The jaws of darkness do devour it up All's cheerless, dark, and deadly. The best is past Thou'lt come no more Sally

It was right for his speech to be a failure, since what he had been defending was a lie.

When we are born, we cry that we are come To this great stage of fools. He

Pray you now forget, and forgive: I am old and foolish

The weight of this sad time we must obey, Speak what we feel, not what we have to say: The oldest hath borne most; we that are young Shall never see so much, nor live so long.'" Then

We endured. Hour after hour we endured, while inside us life's scream ran on, unstoppable. When the stars began imperceptibly to fade, we were still there, still breathing, and our father was still dead beside us, his face both sharp and slumped.

Lord, what fools these mortals be! Wonder on till truth make all things plain A foolish heart, that I leave here behind I know a bank where the wild thyme blows If we shadows have offended She'd

Youth's a stuff will not endure.

I have to admit that this notebook, with its wilderness of blank pages, seems almost more threat than gift—for what can I write here that it will not hurt to remember? You

He knows a sweep of gratitude, soft as another voice, and so wide and deep he believes he might drown in it.

Maybe it's true that the people who live through the times that become history's pivotal points are those least likely to understand them.