Take five books off your bookshelf...

It is the first sentence from a book called: "Stillness: Daily Gifts of Solitude" by Richard Mahler.

 

I just looked at the reviews on amazon. Looks like an interesting book. I've never read a book like that.

 

Modern Hawaii is the most delightful, beautiful, absurd, exasperating and withal irresistable place that I know of in the world. In October Theo who has got a permanent position at Goupil's in Paris, comes to visit him on his journey thither and tried in vain to bring him to some fixed plan for the future; he is not yet ripe to take any resolution; before he becomes conscious of his real power, he has still to struggle through the awful winter of 1879-80, the saddest, most hopeless time of his never very fortunate life. We should practice Zen with the same sincerity as Buddha. And always the water mounting, higher, higher, and the air growing colder, the snow sparkling like powdered diamonds. He's not in the mood; you know how cats are.

 

In the second act of The Cherry Orchard, Lopahin, a young merchant describes his life of hard work and success. She'd meant to send them, but to do that she would have had to answer Rio's letter, to tell him about Rachel or to lie by omission. Her work was done. I have seen some bad traumas in later life when adolescents discovered hidden truths. I contacted knitting psychologists to get their opinions.

 

Shunryu Suzuki!

I read a review on the cosmological eye (from your other sentence above). That led me to Henry Miller's biography - interesting fellow. I had never heard of the controversy over his book, The Tropic of Cancer, before (I'd never heard of the book before either).

Spec, what are these sentences from?

 

The first one you quoted was from "Summerhill" by Erich Fromm (Book 4 page 150)

The last sentence is from "Zen and the Art of Knitting" by Bernadette Murphy (Book 2 page 50).

 

There was once a boy names Milo who didn't know what to do with himself - not just sometimes, but always. Minutes old our first death is our own birth. Every man is an inlet to the same and to all of the same. It may appear and blank out, shift, move and change, but will gradually become more stable as you accustom yourself to astral vision. But that's another story and shall be told another time.

 

What book is this from Specs? The sentence turned up on the web on a couple of sites, but I couldn't figure out what book it is from.

 

Dusk had come to the universe, albeit the small universe inhabited by Man. The real luck occurred twelve years later, in 1950, when he was eighteen; the limp and dead muscles in his lower calves disqualified him for military service.
How then could a stove simply be a stove? They are selling short at gorilla level.
I knew that it was not my time, yet.

(from: 1 - The Time Dweller - Michael Moorcock
2 - The Universe Next Door -Robert A Wilson
3 - Pictor's Metamorphosis - Herman Hesse
4 - The Western Lands - William S Burroughs
5 - Journey to Ixtlan - Carlos Castaneda.)

 

I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up. Heidi's English was particularity strong, and some words were unfamiliar - 'discersion' for example, but she understood enough to recognize this as a letter of some importance, the kind of letter that she would like to receive herself one day. I head to mine and get ready to leave. He could be a source of blow. Being tired isn't the same as being rich, but most times it's close enough.

 

Good pick for a first sentence from a cool book.

Good pick for a first sentence from a cool book.

 

It is a classic for sure.

 

That came from "Spiral Dance" by Starhawk (p.150 in my 10th anniversary edition. I think they now have a 20th anniversary edition. Paging might be different in the newer edition.)

 

"Nothing ever happens to me." I choked out some words through my grief and misery; as much as to say I would spare the sun; for which the lad's eyes paid me back with such deep and loving gratitude that I had not the heart to tell him his goodhearted foolishness had ruined me and sent me to my death. "I shouldn't be surprised if it was," said Wimsey. Just know that when it comes down to actually moving somebody in it should be one of us. Send me word that he has come back.

 

That's cool! I've read about all kinds of religions and philosophies over the years, but until the last year and a half, I had not read much about Wicca. There didn't seem to be much information on Wicca available to me during my period of "intense" study.

 

For several years I was that most pathetic of creatures, a human who walks into the veterinarian's office without an animal. Her hair was ruffled on her forehead and her cheeks were bright pink. For character moves within matter. After a time, however, El-ahrairah began to find that something was always going wrong with his plans. The lights dimmed, and the white horse dwindled down the corridor beyond the arch, to where his name was still above his stall, and fresh straw waiting.

 

For a naturalist, traveling into unfamiliar territory is like turning a kaleidoscope ninety degrees. For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction. The first week in June started out with all the scheduled trains running on time, and a light freight business. And they saw the stag enter into a thicket where their horses could not follow. You know, I said, that's a pretty nice job for a cat.

 

Kahlil Gibran! I've never read through a full work if his, but I read through a bunch of his stuff when I was in school, at the library, between classes.

You read a wide variety of subject matter!

 

Outside the entrance of the Mariabronn cloister, whose rounded arch rested on slim double columns, a chestnut tree stood close to the road. The boy had come to the monastery once with his parents. He and John and the art instructor become involved in get-acquainted talk about the differences between Montana and Minnesota. Now, a really first-class razor like that needs very little in the way of grinding and setting, provided it is mercifully used and kept carefully stopped. Far out in the bay a curve of blue fire melted, rolled in a silver wheel, and was lost under the light of day.