Gone, I say and walk from church,
refusing the stiff procession to the grave,
letting the dead ride alone in the hearse.
It is June. I am tired of being brave.
We drive to the Cape. I cultivate
myself where the sun gutters from the sky,
where the sea swings in like an iron gate
and we touch. In another country people die.
My darling, the wind falls in like stones
from the whitehearted water and when we touch
we enter touch entirely. No one’s alone.
Men kill for this, or for as much.
And what of the dead? They lie without shoes
in the stone boats. They are more like stone
than the sea would be if it stopped. They refuse
to be blessed, throat, eye and knucklebone.
Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post. I am the sword in the darkness. The watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men. I pledge my life and honor to the Night’s Watch, for this night and all the nights to come.
“
| — |
George R. R. Martin, A Clash of Kings
|
When the blaze was all acrackle, he peeled off his stiff gloves to warm his hands, and sighed, wondering if ever a kiss had felt as good. The warmth spread through his fingers like melting butter.
“
| — |
George R. R. Martin, A Clash of Kings
|
When we were little, Jaime and I were so much alike that even our lord father could not tell us apart. Sometimes as a lark we would dress in each other’s clothes and spend a whole day each as the other. Yet even so, when Jaime was given his first sword, there was none for me. ‘What do I get?’ I remember asking. We were so much alike, I could never understand why they treated us so differently. Jaime learned to fight with sword and lance and mace, while I was taught to smile and sing and please. He was heir to Casterly Rock, while I was to be sold to some stranger like a horse, to be ridden whenever my new owner liked, beaten whenever he liked, and cast aside in time for some younger filly. Jaime’s lot was to be glory and power, while mine was birth and moonblood.
“
| — |
George R. R. Martin, A Clash of Kings
|
Foolish woman, will holding it a secret in your heart make if any less true? If you never tell, never speak of it, will it become only a dream, less than a dream, a nightmare half-remembered? Oh, if only the gods would be so good.
“
| — |
George R. R. Martin, A Clash of Kings
|
Sansa, permit me to share a bit of womanly wisdom with you on this very special day. Love is a poison. A sweet poison, yes, but it will kill you all the same.
“
| — |
George R. R. Martin, A Clash of Kings
|
To generalize about war is like generalizing about peace. Almost everything is true. Almost nothing is true.
At its core, perhaps, war is just another name for death, and yet any soldier will tell you, if he tells the truth, that proximity to death brings with it a corresponding proximity to life.
“
| — |
Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried (via aphesis)
|
‘Knights die in battle,’ Catelyn reminded her.
Brienne looked at her with those blue and beautiful eyes. ‘As ladies die in childbed. No one sings songs about them.’
“
| — |
George R. R. Martin, A Clash of Kings
|
We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry.
rabbit-light:
By the first of August
the invisible beetles began
to snore and the grass was
as tough as hemp and was
no color–no more than
the sand was a color and
we had worn our bare feet
bare since the twentieth
of June and there were times
we forgot to wind up your
alarm clock and some nights
we took our gin warm and neat
from old jelly glasses while
the sun blew out of sight
like a red picture hat and
one day I tied my hair back
with a ribbon and you said
that I looked almost like
a puritan lady and what
I remember best is that
the door to your room was
the door to mine.
Anne Sexton
