“Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy!The nose is holy! The tongue and cock and handand asshole holy!Everything is holy! everybody's holy! everywhere isholy! everyday is in eternity! Everyman's anangel!The bum's as holy as the seraphim! the madman isholy as you my soul are holy!The typewriter is holy the poem is holy the voice isholy the hearers are holy the ecstasy is holy!Holy Peter holy Allen holy Solomon holy Lucien holyKerouac holy Huncke holy Burroughs holy Cas-sady holy the unknown buggered and sufferingbeggars holy the hideous human angels!Holy my mother in the insane asylum! Holy the cocksof the grandfathers of Kansas!Holy the groaning saxophone! Holy the bopapocalypse! Holy the jazzbands marijuanahipsters peace & junk & drums!Holy the solitudes of skyscrapers and pavements! Holythe cafeterias filled with the millions! Holy themysterious rivers of tears under the streets!Holy the lone juggernaut! Holy the vast lamb of themiddle class! Holy the crazy shepherds of rebell-ion! Who digs Los Angeles IS Los Angeles!Holy New York Holy San Francisco Holy Peoria &Seattle Holy Paris Holy Tangiers Holy MoscowHoly Istanbul!Holy time in eternity holy eternity in time holy theclocks in space holy the fourth dimension holythe fifth International holy the Angel in Moloch!Holy the sea holy the desert holy the railroad holy thelocomotive holy the visions holy the hallucina-tions holy the miracles holy the eyeball holy theabyss!Holy forgiveness! mercy! charity! faith! Holy! Ours!bodies! suffering! magnanimity!Holy the supernatural extra brilliant intelligentkindness of the soul!”
―
Allen Ginsberg,
Howl and Other Poems
“Many waters cannot quench love, Nor will rivers overflow it. Song of Solomon 8: 7.” ― Tiffany Reisz, The Angel
“What is belonging?” we ask. She says, “Where loneliness ends.” ― Rivers Solomon, The Deep
“Forgetting was not the same as healing.” ― Rivers Solomon, The Deep
“I am a boy and a girl and a witch all wrapped into one very strange, flimsy, indecisive body. Do you think my body couldn't decide what it wanted to be?” ― Rivers Solomon, An Unkindness of Ghosts
“Pretty was a strange thing to concern oneself over. Pretty was subjective and fallacious.” ― Rivers Solomon, An Unkindness of Ghosts
“because when you are in pain, sometimes the only escape is another different pain.” ― Rivers Solomon, The Deep
“Aye. You gender-malcontent. You otherling,” she said, the fog of anesthesia wearing off. She could see him clearly now. The curl of his lashes. The white flecks of skin over his dry lips. “Me too. I am a boy and a girl and a witch all wrapped into one very strange, flimsy, indecisive body. Do you think my body couldn’t decide what it wanted to be?” “I think it doesn’t matter because we get to decide what our bodies are or are not,” he answered. Aster sat up, and Theo helped her prop two pillows beneath her head. “Is that so? Then I am magic. I say it, therefore it is true,” she said.” ― Rivers Solomon, An Unkindness of Ghosts
“One can only go for so long without asking ‘who am I?’, ‘where do I come from?’, ‘what does all this mean?’, ‘what is being?’, ‘what came before me and what might come after?’. Without answers there is only a hole. A hole where a history should be that takes the shape of an endless longing. We are cavities.” ― Rivers Solomon, The Deep
“Truly landlocked people know they are. Know the occasional Bitter Creek or Powder River that runs through Wyoming; that the large tidy Salt Lake of Utah is all they have of the sea and that they must content themselves with bank, shore, beach because they cannot claim a coast. And having none, seldom dream of flight. But the people living in the Great Lakes region are confused by their place on the country’s edge - an edge that is border but not coast. They seem to be able to live a long time believing, as coastal people do, that they are at the frontier where final exit and total escape are the only journeys left. But those five Great Lakes which the St. Lawrence feeds with memories of the sea are themselves landlocked, in spite of the wandering river that connects them to the Atlantic. Once the people of the lake region discover this, the longing to leave becomes acute, and a break from the area, therefore, is necessarily dream-bitten, but necessary nonetheless.” ― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon
“You say madness such as mine doesn’t exist, but it would exist in you, too, if you had to experience the ugly things I do all the time,” she said,” ― Rivers Solomon, The Deep
“You are an anomaly of a man," she said."Perhaps because I'm not a man at all." He sat closer now. The sheets wrinkled as he scooted himself toward her."Aye. You gender-malcontent. You otherling," she said..."Me too. I am a boy and a girl and a witch all wrapped into one very strange, flimsy, indecisive body. Do you think my body couldn't decide what it wanted to be?""I think it doesn't matter because we get to decide what our bodies are or are not," he answered.” ― Rivers Solomon, An Unkindness of Ghosts
“People do not know what to make of me, and this pleases me. I don't want to be scrutable.” ― Rivers Solomon, An Unkindness of Ghosts
“Loving, worshipping, and bowing down to folks who harmed you was written into the genes of all animal creatures. To be alive meant to lust after connection, and better to have one with the enemy than with no one at all. A baby's fingers and mouth grasp on instinct.” ― Rivers Solomon, Sorrowland
“The deep will be our sibling, our parent, our relief from endless solitude. Down here, we are wrapped up. Down here, we can pretend the dark is the black embrace of another.” ― Rivers Solomon, The Deep
“Poor, poor books. Lonely pages bound in lonely leather, their only company the occasional louse. They exist only t be read, and yet with no one there to read them, they might as well not have been bornt at all. I run my fingers along the spines of the books I can reach. I do it to affirm them. To let them know I'm a lover of stories even stories about alchematics or biology and other true things.” ― Rivers Solomon, An Unkindness of Ghosts
“Dear Nastenka, I know I describe splendidly, but, excuse me, I don't know how else to do it. At this moment, dear Nastenka, at this moment I am like the spirit of King Solomon when, after lying a thousand years under seven seals in his urn, those seven seals were at last taken off. At this moment, Nastenka, when we have met at last after such a long separation - for I have known you for ages, Nastenka, because I have been looking for some one for ages, and that is a sign that it was you I was looking for, and it was ordained that we should meet now - at this moment a thousand valves have opened in my head, and I must let myself flow in a river of words, or I shall choke. And so I beg you not to interrupt me, Nastenka, but listen humbly and obediently, or I will be silent.” ― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, White Nights
“You're one of those who has to tune the world out and focus on one thing at a time. We have a word for that down here, women like you. Insiwa. Inside one. It means you live inside your head and to step out of it hurts like a caning.” ― Rivers Solomon, An Unkindness of Ghosts
“She had no wish to transform trauma to performance, to parade what she’d come to think of as her own tragedies for entertainment.” ― Rivers Solomon, The Deep
“Many waters cannot quench love, Nor will rivers overflow it. Song of Solomon 8: 7.” ― Tiffany Reisz, The Angel
“What is belonging?” we ask. She says, “Where loneliness ends.” ― Rivers Solomon, The Deep
“Forgetting was not the same as healing.” ― Rivers Solomon, The Deep
“I am a boy and a girl and a witch all wrapped into one very strange, flimsy, indecisive body. Do you think my body couldn't decide what it wanted to be?” ― Rivers Solomon, An Unkindness of Ghosts
“Pretty was a strange thing to concern oneself over. Pretty was subjective and fallacious.” ― Rivers Solomon, An Unkindness of Ghosts
“because when you are in pain, sometimes the only escape is another different pain.” ― Rivers Solomon, The Deep
“Aye. You gender-malcontent. You otherling,” she said, the fog of anesthesia wearing off. She could see him clearly now. The curl of his lashes. The white flecks of skin over his dry lips. “Me too. I am a boy and a girl and a witch all wrapped into one very strange, flimsy, indecisive body. Do you think my body couldn’t decide what it wanted to be?” “I think it doesn’t matter because we get to decide what our bodies are or are not,” he answered. Aster sat up, and Theo helped her prop two pillows beneath her head. “Is that so? Then I am magic. I say it, therefore it is true,” she said.” ― Rivers Solomon, An Unkindness of Ghosts
“One can only go for so long without asking ‘who am I?’, ‘where do I come from?’, ‘what does all this mean?’, ‘what is being?’, ‘what came before me and what might come after?’. Without answers there is only a hole. A hole where a history should be that takes the shape of an endless longing. We are cavities.” ― Rivers Solomon, The Deep
“Truly landlocked people know they are. Know the occasional Bitter Creek or Powder River that runs through Wyoming; that the large tidy Salt Lake of Utah is all they have of the sea and that they must content themselves with bank, shore, beach because they cannot claim a coast. And having none, seldom dream of flight. But the people living in the Great Lakes region are confused by their place on the country’s edge - an edge that is border but not coast. They seem to be able to live a long time believing, as coastal people do, that they are at the frontier where final exit and total escape are the only journeys left. But those five Great Lakes which the St. Lawrence feeds with memories of the sea are themselves landlocked, in spite of the wandering river that connects them to the Atlantic. Once the people of the lake region discover this, the longing to leave becomes acute, and a break from the area, therefore, is necessarily dream-bitten, but necessary nonetheless.” ― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon
“You say madness such as mine doesn’t exist, but it would exist in you, too, if you had to experience the ugly things I do all the time,” she said,” ― Rivers Solomon, The Deep
“You are an anomaly of a man," she said."Perhaps because I'm not a man at all." He sat closer now. The sheets wrinkled as he scooted himself toward her."Aye. You gender-malcontent. You otherling," she said..."Me too. I am a boy and a girl and a witch all wrapped into one very strange, flimsy, indecisive body. Do you think my body couldn't decide what it wanted to be?""I think it doesn't matter because we get to decide what our bodies are or are not," he answered.” ― Rivers Solomon, An Unkindness of Ghosts
“People do not know what to make of me, and this pleases me. I don't want to be scrutable.” ― Rivers Solomon, An Unkindness of Ghosts
“Loving, worshipping, and bowing down to folks who harmed you was written into the genes of all animal creatures. To be alive meant to lust after connection, and better to have one with the enemy than with no one at all. A baby's fingers and mouth grasp on instinct.” ― Rivers Solomon, Sorrowland
“The deep will be our sibling, our parent, our relief from endless solitude. Down here, we are wrapped up. Down here, we can pretend the dark is the black embrace of another.” ― Rivers Solomon, The Deep
“Poor, poor books. Lonely pages bound in lonely leather, their only company the occasional louse. They exist only t be read, and yet with no one there to read them, they might as well not have been bornt at all. I run my fingers along the spines of the books I can reach. I do it to affirm them. To let them know I'm a lover of stories even stories about alchematics or biology and other true things.” ― Rivers Solomon, An Unkindness of Ghosts
“Dear Nastenka, I know I describe splendidly, but, excuse me, I don't know how else to do it. At this moment, dear Nastenka, at this moment I am like the spirit of King Solomon when, after lying a thousand years under seven seals in his urn, those seven seals were at last taken off. At this moment, Nastenka, when we have met at last after such a long separation - for I have known you for ages, Nastenka, because I have been looking for some one for ages, and that is a sign that it was you I was looking for, and it was ordained that we should meet now - at this moment a thousand valves have opened in my head, and I must let myself flow in a river of words, or I shall choke. And so I beg you not to interrupt me, Nastenka, but listen humbly and obediently, or I will be silent.” ― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, White Nights
“You're one of those who has to tune the world out and focus on one thing at a time. We have a word for that down here, women like you. Insiwa. Inside one. It means you live inside your head and to step out of it hurts like a caning.” ― Rivers Solomon, An Unkindness of Ghosts
“She had no wish to transform trauma to performance, to parade what she’d come to think of as her own tragedies for entertainment.” ― Rivers Solomon, The Deep
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