Saturday, November 19, 2016

We look at our race, this parade of men and women, and the unbelievable harm and cruelty they do. And we sigh, and we say, "Perhaps our time is past, let the sharks or the cockroaches take over." And then, without knowing why, without even thinking of it, the worst among us does the great thing, the noble deed, that spark of impossible human godliness. And we say, "Perhaps the human race is entitled to a little more sufferance. Let them keep trying to reach the dream." Evil can come from good, and good from evil.
- Captain James T. Kirk in Harlan Ellison's "The City on the Edge of Forever"

Tuesday, November 08, 2016

I had got into a net through my own timidity and weakness, and I did not see how to get out of it.
- from "The Grey Woman" in Gothic Tales by Elizabeth Gaskell