April 23, 2004

Fifth In Line

how i sometimes get from one thing to another even i may never know. i did however stumble across this wonderful quote today. it certainly goes into my list of favorites.

Everyone carries with them at least one piece to someone else's puzzle.
-- Lawrence Kushner

now i certainly know how i ran across this, i followed a link from braincrayons over to a penny for your thoughts after it was mentioned there was a great quote there. and i wasn't disappoined.

but somehow after that i ended up getting to this passage from an unwritten novel by virginia woolf and felt the need to share it. why? dunno.

SUCH an expression of unhappiness was enough by itself to make one’s eyes slide above the paper’s edge to the poor woman’s face—insignificant without that look, almost a symbol of human destiny with it. Life’s what you see in people’s eyes; life’s what they learn, and, having learnt it, never, though they seek to hide it, cease to be aware of—what? That life’s like that, it seems. Five faces opposite—five mature faces—and the knowledge in each face. Strange, though, how people want to conceal it! Marks of reticence are on all those faces: lips shut, eyes shaded, each one of the five doing something to hide or stultify his knowledge. One smokes; another reads; a third checks entries in a pocket book; a fourth stares at the map of the line framed opposite; and the fifth—the terrible thing about the fifth is that she does nothing at all. She looks at life. Ah, but my poor, unfortunate woman, do play the game—do, for all our sakes, conceal it!
-- Virginia Woolf   link to source

Posted by ac at April 23, 2004 05:32 PM

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