. h e w n

“Oh, I bite, I bite on life like a sharp apple.  Playing it like a fish, I am happy.  And what is happy?  It is a going always on.  There is something better to be done than I have done, and spurred by the fair delusion of progress, I will seek to progress, to whip myself on, to more and more - to learning.  Always.”

- Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

The night was heady and frosty. There was no wind and the air was cold and still. The stars were brilliant and hung low in the sky. There were so many stars that their light made the sky a deep cobalt blue. There wasn’t a moon but the starlight served better than moonlight.

Francie stood on tiptoe and stretched her arms wide. “Oh, I want to hold it all!” she cried. “I want to hold the way the night is—cold without wind. And the way the stars are so near and shiny. I want to hold all of it tight until it hollers out, ‘Let me go! Let me go!’”

“Don’t stand so near the edge,” said Neeley uneasily. “You might fall off the roof.”

“I need someone,” thought Francie desperately. “I need someone. I need to hold somebody close. And I need more than this holding. I need someone to understand how I feel at a time like now. And the understanding must be part of the holding.”

- Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

I did not know what to say to him.  I felt awkward and blundering.  I did not know how I could reach him, where I could overtake him and go on hand in hand with him once more.

It is such a secret place, the land of tears.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince