#innocence

The taste of the usual was like cinders in his mouth, and there were moments when he felt as if he were being buried alive under his future. ↗

— Edith Wharton

#the-age-of-innocence #age

He bent and laid his lips on her hands, which were cold and lifeless. She drew them away, and he turned to the door, found his coat and hat under the faint gas-light of the hall, and plunged out into the winter night bursting with the belated eloquence of the inarticulate. ↗

— Edith Wharton

#age

Evil always wins through the strength of its splendid dupes; and there has in all ages been a disastrous alliance between abnormal innocence and abnormal sin. ↗

— G.K. Chesterton

#innocence #useful-idiots #age

He had her in his arms, her face like a wet flower at his lips, and all their vain terrors shriveling up like ghosts at sunrise. ↗

— Edith Wharton

#in-his-arms #the-age-of-innocence #age

I'm not...' Angharad began, but then she thought. Not what? Not a bad person? Perhaps. But had she never known anger? Never held unkind thoughts? The stranger's observation was valid. No one was innocent of darkness. ↗

— Charles de Lint

#anger

This was me before I knew about anything hard, when my whole life was packed lunches and art projects and spelling quizzes. ↗

— Nina LaCour

#innocence #memories #art

You were born a child of light’s wonderful secret— you return to the beauty you have always been. ↗

— Aberjhani

#faith #healing #inner-peace #innocence #life-and-death

Voll Blüten steht der Pfirsichbaum nicht jede wächst zur Frucht sie schimmern hell wie Rosenschaum durch Blau und Wolkenflucht. Wie Blüten geh'n Gedanken auf hundert an jedem Tag -- lass' blühen, lass' dem Ding den Lauf frag' nicht nach dem Ertrag! Es muss auch Spiel und Unschuld sein und Blütenüberfluss sonst wär' die Welt uns viel zu klein und Leben kein Genuss. ↗

— Hermann Hesse

#beauty #blossoms #enjoyment #growth #ideas

What sets one Southern town apart from another, or from a Northern town or hamlet, or city high-rise? The answer must be the experience shared between the unknowing majority (it) and the knowing minority (you). All of childhood's unanswered questions must finally be passed back to the town and answered there. Heroes and bogey men, values and dislikes, are first encountered and labeled in that early environment. In later years they change faces, places and maybe races, tactics, intensities and goals, but beneath those penetrable masks they wear forever the stocking-capped faces of childhood. ↗

— Maya Angelou

#i-know-why-the-caged-bird-sings #innocence #learning #maya-angelou #change

The world’s crawling with stupid, innocent girls, and I’m just one of them, self-consciously chasing after dreams that will never come true. ↗

— Haruki Murakami

#dreaming #innocence #naivete #dreams