Photographs: Sean Scully
Essay: Colm Toibin
I was moving into a world of nature governed by wind and weather, sharp and soft lines of horizon, disappearing perspectives, high skies and great banks of cloud, and a world of people governed by careful politeness, watchful slow glances, and deliberate understatement.
Colm Toibin, Sean Scully: Walls of Aran (2007)
I suppose we are all hobos until God claims our souls.
Dermot Bolger, New Town Soul (2011)
The war now was for him a jumble of random images that haunted his sleeping self -- the Alps in the moonlight, a propeller blade flying through the air, a face pale in the water. Well, good luck to you then. Sometimes this overwhelming stench of lilacs, at other times a sweetly held dance tune. And always at the end of the nightmare there was the inescapable end itself, the fire and the sickening hurtle of the fall to earth. In the nightmare we wake ourselves before the awful end, before the fall, but Teddy had to be woken by Nancy's shushing, by her cradle hand soothing him, and he would stare into the darkness for a long time wondering what would happen to him if she failed to wake him one night.
He had been reconciled to death during the war and then suddenly the war was over and there was a next day and a next day and a next day. Part of him never adjusted to having a future.
Kate Atkinson, A God In Ruins (2015)
Look you, Berganza, no one should interfere where he is not wanted, nor take upon himself a business that is in no wise his concern. Besides, you ought to know, that the advice of the poor, however good it may be, is never taken; nor should the lowly presume to offer advice to the great, who fancy they know everything. Wisdom in a poor man lies under a cloud, and cannot be seen; or if by chance it shines through it, people mistake it for folly, and treat it with contempt.
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, The Colloquy Of The Dogs (1613)
The now-living zebra said nothing to me at all, but when it saw me, it began a dance, a twisting, jerky ballet which culminated with the zebra repeatedly thrusting its gelded groin into the face of an innocent Barbie doll. That made me quite angry, and I growled at the molester zebra, but it simply smiled and continued its assault, this time picking on a stuffed frog, which it mounted from behind and rode bareback, its hoof in the air like a bronc rider, yelling out, "Yee-haw! Yee-haw!"
I stalked the bastard as it abused and humiliated each of Zoe's toys with great malice. Finally, I could take no more and moved in, teeth bared for attack, to end the brutal burlesque once and for all. But before I could get the demented zebra in my fangs, it stopped dancing and stood on its hind legs before me. The it reached down with its forelegs and tore at the seam that ran down its belly. Its own seam! It ripped the seam open until it was able to reach in and tear out its own stuffing. It continued dismantling itself, seam by seam, handful by handful, until it expelled whatever demon's blood had brought it to life and was nothing more than a pile of fabric and stuffing that undulated on the floor, beating like a heart ripped from a chest, slowly, slower, and then nothing.
Garth Stein, The Art Of Racing In The Rain (2008)
It was the first time in his life that Edgardo had slept under the same roof as a woman. Although their beds were not close, he thought he could hear her breath and heartbeat. Even when the mind is not willing, and the body is not willing either, desire awakens and sin takes over your soul. He tossed and turned under the blanket, unable to sleep. The night silence had turned into a racket. The swish of the waves along the shore had become a waterfall, and the cry of an owl had become a call of death. The faint flame of the oil lamp squashed the shadows into the floor, awakening glistening eyes and fragments of stars.
Edgardo started to pray as he had been taught to by monks when he could not sleep for love or money. However, Kallis's breath and heartbeat seemed to grow louder and dance around him. He continued to repeat his litany to chase away thoughts and images.
Roberto Tiraboschi, The Eye Stone: The First Medieval Noir About The Birth Of Venice, (2014)
