“And day to day, life’s a hard job, you get tired, you lose the pattern. You need distance, interval. The way to see how beautiful the earth is, is to see it as the moon. The way to see how beautiful life is, is from the vantage point of death.”
Ursula le Guin – The Dispossessed
“There is no end to the deceits of the past.”
Vernon Lee – Limbo and Other Essays
“Can the beautiful be sad? Is beauty inseparable from the ephemeral and hence from mourning? Or else is the beautiful object the one that tirelessly returns following destructions and wars in order to bear witness that there is survival after death, that immortality is possible?”
Julia Kristeva – Black Sun
“The generation of atmosphere, the aura of the uncanny, is one of the most important secrets of magic. It contributes to the willing suspension of disbelief, the feeling that, within the circle, or in the presence of the magical shrine, anything may happen.”
Doreen Valiente – An ABC of Witchcraft, Past and Present
“Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.”
Pema Chodron –When Things Fall Apart
Five quotes to hold in mind when reading Ghosts and Other Tales (released on 26th October 2018).
Images by Gavin R Jones, with fragments from stories in Ghosts and Other Tales.
