words archive

[N.B. — this words archive is a complement to the “thousand word thursday” series, which began in january 2009 and continued until april 2011.  i’m toying with the idea of starting it up again, so stay tuned.]

april 2011

• “a hush is over everything, silent as women wait for love; the world is waiting for the spring.” (sara teasdale)

march 2011

• “the aim of waking is to dream” (e.e. cummings)
• “love is thicker than forget” (e.e. cummings)

february 2011

• “do not be satisfied with the stories that come before you. unfold your own myth.” (j. rumi)
• “i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)” (e.e. cummings)

january 2011

• “there will come a time when you believe everything is finished; that will be the beginning.”  (louis l’amour)
• “there are years that ask questions, and years that answer them.” (zora neale hurston)
• “footsteps in the snow suggest where you have been, point to where you were going; but when they suddenly vanish, never dismiss the possibility of flight.” (diane duane)
• “the moon is always jealous of the heat of the day, just as the sun always longs for something dark and deep.” (alice hoffman)
• “life is made up of moments, small pieces of glittering mica in a long stretch of gray cement.” (anna quindlen)

december 2010

• “there was nowhere to go but everywhere, so just keep on rolling under the stars.”  (jack kerouac)
• “it’s beginning to look a lot like christmas.” (meredith wilson)
• “at christmas, all roads lead home.” (marjorie holmes)
• “just because everything is different doesn’t mean anything has changed.” (irene peter)

november 2010

• “what you seek is seeking you.” (rumi)
• “come with us and you will see, this, our town of halloween!” (danny elfman)
• “old myths, old gods, old heroes have never died. they are only sleeping at the bottom of our mind, waiting for our call. we have need for them. they represent the wisdom of our race.” (stanley kunitz)
• “one of these days, letters are gonna fall from the sky, telling us all to go free.” (steven mckellar)
• “change always comes bearing gifts.” (price pritchett)

october 2010

• “we forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget.”  (joan didion)
• “time is like the wind, it lifts the light and leaves the heavy.” (doménico cieri estrada)
• “all that a city will ever allow you is an angle on it — an oblique, indirect sample of what it contains, or what passes through it; a point of view.” (peter conrad)
• “a soft light, a scent in the air, the quiet murmur of the city.” (guillaume laurant, amélie)

september 2010

• “cats never strike a pose that isn’t photogenic.” (lillian jackson braun)
• “and the sun on your face, i’m freezing that frame.” (tori amos)
• “you have to pick the places you don’t walk away from.” (joan didion)

august 2010

• “watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places.” (roald dahl)
• “better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.” (chinese proverb)
• “summer isn’t a time.  it’s a place as well.” (terry pratchett)
• “we have to go. i am almost happy here.” (ender wiggin)

july 2010

• “sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple”  (theodor seuss geisel)
• “the sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. one should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach – waiting for a gift from the sea.” (anne morrow lindbergh)
• “my witness is the empty sky.”  (jack kerouac)
• “the only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.” (albert einstein)

june 2010

• “we must be our own before we can be another’s”  (ralph waldo emerson)
• “the soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone.” (johann wolfgang von goethe)
• “there are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.” (c.s. lewis)
• “our birthdays are feathers in the broad wing of time.” (j.p. richter)

may 2010

• “it’s all there, but hard to find the beginning and impossible to fathom the end.” (jeanette winterson)
• “the space within becomes the reality of the building.” (frank lloyd wright)
• “if cats could talk, they wouldn’t.”  (nan porter)
• “it is designed to break your heart. the game begins in the spring, when everything is new again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains comes, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone.” (a. bartlett giamatti)
• “there is no blue without yellow and without orange.” (vincent van gogh)

april 2010

• “life, for eternal us, is now and now is much too busy being everything to seem anything.” (e.e. cummings)
• “that’s the way things come clear. all of a sudden. and then you realize how obvious they’ve been all along.” (madeleine l’engle)
• “there are always flowers for those who want to see them.” (matisse)
• “once, i spoke the language of the flowers.” (shel silverstein)
• “maybe this chapter would’ve had the faintest whisper of love about it.” (gabrielle zevin)

march 2010

• “life is made up of moments, small pieces of glittering mica in a long stretch of gray cement.” (anna quindlen)
• “everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.” (m.l.k., jr)
• “variety’s the very spice of life, that gives it all its flavor.” (william cowper)
• “even if we drink i don’t think we would kiss in the way that we did, when the woman was only a girl.” (the cure)
• “nothing gold can stay.” (r. frost)

february 2010

• “nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.” (zelda fitzgerald)
• “the trees reflected in the river — they are unconscious of a spiritual world so near to them. so are we.” (nathaniel hawthorne)
• “there is neither heaven nor earth, only snow, falling incessantly.” (anon)
• “when the moon light shines on the snow at the eve of the night and everything is silent, listen to the nothing, listen for the sound of pure magic.” (audrey kitty)
• “perhaps the truth depends upon a walk around the lake.” (wallace stevens)

january 2010

• “there are years that ask questions and years that answer them.” (zora neale hurston)
• “last year’s words belong to last year’s language and next year’s words await another voice.” (t.s. eliot)
• “the papercuts, the cheating lovers, the coffee’s never strong enough. i know you think it’s more than just bad luck.” (imogen heap)
• “when people walk away from you — let them go — your destiny is never tied to anyone who leaves you, & it doesn’t mean they are bad people, it just means that their part in your story is over.” (where the heart is)
• “food is the only beautiful thing that truly nourishes.” (w. keane)

december 2009

• “observe the wonders as they occur around you. don’t claim them. feel the artistry moving through, and be silent.” (rumi)
• “autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.” (a. camus)
• “it is a beautiful kind of first snow. everything is more innocent; but only for a whisper of time.” (r. floss)
• “the family.  we were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another’s desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together.” (erma bombeck)

november 2009

• “we must wait until the evening to see how splendid the day had been.” (sophocles)
• “indian summer, call me back.” (t. amos)
• “qu’ils mangent de la brioche.” (m. antoinette)
• “you must let the colors violate the blackness.” (t. amos)
• “let your love be like the misty rains, coming softly, but flooding the river.” (malagasy proverb)

october 2009

• “life is once, forever, and new all the time.” (h. cartier-bresson)
• “how can we know the dancer from the dance?”  (e. degas)
• “from within or from behind, a light shines through us upon things, and makes us aware that we are nothing, but the light is all.” (r. w. emerson)
• “the poetry of the earth is never dead.” (j. keats)
• “falling leaves / hide the path / so quietly” (j. bailey)

september 2009

• “forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.”  (k. gibran)
• “flowers leave some of their fragrance in the hand that bestows them.” (chinese proverb)
• “the whole universe is based on rhythms. everything happens in circles.” (j. hartford)
• “i believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.” (w. whitman)
• “always there lurked the fear that one’s own view of truth was merely a small window in a small house.” (t. wilder)

august 2009

• “how did it go so fast? you’ll say as we are looking back, and then we’ll understand, we held gold dust in our hands.”  (t. amos)
• “you don’t need the light to guide you through this.” (t. amos)
• “just keep your eyes on her horizon.” (t. amos)
• “certain these clouds go somewhere, billowing out to somewhere.” (t. amos)
• “you fly alone now and you cry sometimes.”  (t. amos)

july 2009

• “out beyond talk of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field.  i’ll meet you there.”  (j. rumi)
• “light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. no matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.” (t. pratchett)
• “the waves echo behind me. patience — faith — openness, is what the sea has to teach. simplicity — solitude — intermittency . . . but there are other beaches to explore. there are more shells to find. this is only a beginning.” (a.m. lindbergh)
• “look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” (a. einstein)
• “there is only one day left, always starting over: it is given to us at dawn and taken away from us at dusk.” (j.p. sartre)
• “we cross our bridges when we come to them, and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered.” (t. stoppard)

june 2009

• “change waltzes in with her sister pain, waiting for you to send her away, wish her well, break the chain.” (t. amos)
• “life is full of beauty. notice it. notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. smell the rain, and feel the wind. live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams.” (a. smith)
• “first you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you.” (f.s. fitzgerald)
• “the eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.” (h.bergson)
• “when you have only two pennies left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other.” (chinese proverb)

may 2009

• “you’re all smiles and silly conversation, as if this sunny day came just for you.” (c. rice)
• “i love you more than one more day.”  (anon)
• “all journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.” (m. buber)
• “so plant your own garden and decorate your own soul instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.” (s. lovler)
• “in ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this.” (t. pratchett)

april 2009

• “the sun was warm but the wind was chill. you know how it is with an april day.” (r. frost)
• “april comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.” (e. millay)
• “let the rain kiss you. let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. let the rain sing you a lullaby.” (l. hughes)
• “it is such a secret place, the land of tears.” (a.d. saint-exupery)
• “we are tied to the ocean. and when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch – we are going back from whence we came.” (j.f. kennedy)
• “thoughts are the shadows of our feelings – always darker, emptier and simpler.” (f. nietzsche)

march 2009

• “let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love.” (rumi)
• “one kind word can warm three winter months.” (japanese proverb)
• “no one can see their reflection in running water. it is only in still water that we can see.” (taoist proverb)
• “no matter how long the winter, spring is sure to follow.” (proverb)

february 2009

• “a bit of fragrance always clings to the hand that gives you roses.”  (chinese proverb)
• “wonderful creatures, these orchids.”  (c. darwin)
• “tell me what you eat, i’ll tell you who you are.” (a. brillat-savarin)
• “life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more.” (w. shakespeare)
• “his affections, like ivy, were the growth of time. they implied no aptness in the object.” (r.l. stevenson)

january 2009

• “change is never easy.  you fight to hold on.  you fight to let go.”  (anon)
• “the breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. don’t go back to sleep.” (rumi)
• “so comes snow after fire, and even dragons have their ending.” (j.r.r. tolkien)