July silence

I've taken a break from blogs and blogging for the past few weeks. Perhaps I just needed to get a fresh perspective, or perhaps I was just feeling lazy. I have a couple of postings brewing, but in the mean time, here are some quotes, from books I've been reading, that for one reason or another struck a chord.

“it sometimes happens that when one acts quickly and with great resolve, all the indecisiveness and doubt comes afterwards, when it is too late.” (Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell)

“He began to have the strangest feeling […] the feeling that something was coming to an end and that all his choices had now been made. He had taken a road in his youth, but the road did not lead where he had supposed; he was going home, but home had become something monstrous.” (Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell)

“The captain and sailors sat in the front pews.

All were men with blood on their hands; yet all gazed longingly at the milk-white body of Our Dying Lord, identifying His Agony with their agony and calling on Him to pacify the sea.

The priest said a short prayer to the Patron of Slavers, St José the Redeemed, and a longer one for the souls of the Black Brethren who would be ransomed for the Christian fold.” (Bruce Chatwin, The Viceroy of Ouidah)