Sometimes I have to stand on my head to see things as they are, when the world seems so upside-down that this is the only position in which anything makes sense. – Author unknown
The day was counting up its birds and never got the answer right. – Author unknown
And upsidedown in the earth a dead man walks upon my soles when I walk. – Bill Knott, “(End) of Summer (1966)” (Thanks, Laurie)
Night and morning are making promises to each other which neither will be able to keep. – Richard Shelton
I imagine that yes is the only living thing. – e.e. cummings
Ink smears, as thoughts sometimes do. – Terri Guillemets
Never mind. The self is the least of it. Let our scars fall in love. – Galway Kinnell
Her hearing was keener than his, and she heard silences he was unaware of. – D.M. Thomas
Silence moves faster when it’s going backward. – Jean Cocteau
We are asleep with compasses in our hands. – W.S. Merwin
If only I could leave everything as it is, without moving a single star or a single cloud. Oh, if only I could! – Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin
Sharp nostalgia, infinite and terrible, for what I already possess. – Juan Ramon Jimenez
[T]he departing world leaves behind… not an heir, but a pregnant widow. – Alexander Ivanovich Herzen, Other Shore
Two and two the mathematician continues to make four, in spite of the whine of the amateur for three, or the cry of the critic for five. – James McNeill Whistler, Whistler Versus Ruskin, 1878
We are never prepared for what we expect. – James A. Michener, Caravans
The universe is simmering down, like a giant stew left to cook for four billion years. Sooner or later we won’t be able to tell the carrots from the onions. – Arthur Bloch
It has been said repeatedly that one can never, try as he will, get around to the front of the universe. Man is destined to see only its far side, to realize nature only in retreat. – Loren Eiseley, “The Innocent Fox,” The Star Thrower, 1978
But perhaps the universe is suspended on the tooth of some monster. – Anton Chekhov
Our dream dashes itself against the great mystery like a wasp against a window pane. Less merciful than man, God never opens the window. – Jules Renard, Journal, 1906
Fear is a cloak which old men huddle about their love, as if to keep it warm. – William Wordsworth
