the moon come first

“I say that the moon come first. The moon come before the stars. The moon come even before the sun, I say. And before that the world was bleak, my hearty. The world was dark. The lions slept next to the lambs because the lions could not see their supper. Men bumped about in their Sunday clothing with nowhere to go and the world was filled with confusion. Women wore long dresses and carried parasols for no good reason so far as they could see. All was bewilderment.”

—Edward Chupak, Silver: My Own Tale as Written by Me with a Goodly Amount of Murder, 2008.

Gold is gold

“Gold is gold. Even the flames from the candles on board the ship sputter as the night draws to an end. There is no permanence to flame. Gold lasts forever. I looked in the bag. There was more than gold in that bag, my hearty. There was silver. There were jewels. Coins. There were precious stones of every colour. There was a dagger in the bag with red stones on its handle. I fancied that dagger as soon as I saw it. There were pewter forks and knives. There were plates. Fine ones, they were. There were pistols in the bag, and one of the pistols was so small that it fit into the palm of my hand.”

—Edward Chupak, Silver: My Own Tale as Written by Me with a Goodly Amount of Murder, 2008.

Albemarle County

“I smelled the Carolinas before I saw it. The stench of that country filled my nostrils. I would tell you that the country smelled like old fish, but that would be a libel on cod. They say that there are smells that can raise the dead, but this was a smell that could send a corpse back into the clay. Aye, the perished would leap back into the loam to flee this stench. When I remarked on the affliction, Mary said, ‘We are in the low country.’
    ‘We are in perdition,’ I replied. ‘Tom told me it would smell like this.’
    ‘No,’ Evangeline said. ‘It is just Albemarle County.’”

—Edward Chupak, Silver: My Own Tale as Written by Me with a Goodly Amount of Murder, 2008.

Vernacular Baton Rouge: TIGERS EAT SEAFOOD

that clear, turquoise color that you get with a white sand bottom

“The beach was white as salt, and cut off from the world by a ring of steep hills that faced the sea. We were on the edge of a large bay and the water was that clear, turquoise color that you get with a white sand bottom. I had never seen such a place. I wanted to take off all my clothes and never wear them again.”

—Hunter S. Thompson, The Rum Diary, 1998.

The most important meditation

“. . . some meditation—evening meditation—for about one hour. Then, at eight-thirty, sleep. Most important meditation. compulsory meditation for everyone—even some birds. The most important meditation, not for Nirvana, but for survival.”

—The Fourteenth Dalai Lama, describing his typical evening, quoted by Pico Iyer in The Open Road: The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, 2008.

the nature of our sleep

“[T]he Dalai Lama often talks about sleep as one of the most important activities of the day, even calling on old texts to suggest how sleep can in fact be positively used, as almost anything can, for the clarification of the mind. It appeals to him, I think, because it is one activity that every member of humanity has in common, and the nature of our sleep plays a large part in how clearly we see the world.”

—Pico Iyer, The Open Road: The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, 2008.

a very great and peaceful brightness

“I saw a very great and peaceful brightness which was similar to a flame. This brightness had a lot of eyes in it. . . . Inside this brightness, there was another brightness which . . . had the clearness of purple lightning inside itself. I also saw the earth with people on it. The people were carrying milk in their vessels, and they were making cheese from this milk. Some of the milk was thick, from which strong cheese was being made; some of the milk was thin, from which mild cheese was being curdled; and some of the milk was spoiling, from which bitter cheese was being produced.”

little Marie Tovesky’s eyes

“Carl had never forgotten little Marie Tovesky’s eyes, and he was glad to have an opportunity to study them. The brown iris, he found, was curiously slashed with yellow, the color of sunflower honey, or of old amber. In each eye one of these steaks must have been larger than the others, for the effect was that of two dancing points of light, two little yellow bubbles, such as rise in a glass of champagne. Sometimes they seemed like th sparks from a forge. She seemed so easily excited, to kindle with a fierce little flame if one but breathed upon her.”

—Willa Cather, O Pioneers!, 1913.

the light from some great fire

“The dawn in the east looked like the light from some great fire that was burning under the edge of the world.”

—Willa Cather, O Pioneers!, 1913.