Keith Donohue

“The bed in which we spend a third of our lives functions as a kind of protective haven for the true self, the subconscious refuge from the assault of the external world. The bed becomes the restorative womb, where the imagination is nurtured while our resting bodies are safe.”

“Allure goes beyond appearances to the way they grace the world. Some women propel themselves by means of an internal gyroscope. Others glide through life as if on ice skates. Some women convey their tortured lives through their eyes; others encircle you in the music of their laughter.”

“I would not want to be a child again, for a child exists in uncertainty and danger. Our flesh and blood, we cannot help but fear for them, as we hope for them to make their way in this life.”

“Between the covers a book can be a sin. I have spent many hours in search of a waking dream. And once having learned to read, I couldn’t imagine my life otherwise. The indifferent children around me didn’t share my enthusiasm for the written word. Some might sit for a good story while told, but if a book had no pictures they showed scant interest.”

“To lose one’s name is the beginning of forgetting.”

“Some times our thoughts and dreams are more real than the rest of our experience and at other momentsthat which happens to us overshadows anything we might imagine.”

“(If God wills it)... the number of angels... may be infinite... Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed. Once upon a time, atoms did not exist. There was no Dalton, no Rutherford. Albert Einstein was nothing more than a theorist, but you only have to look at Hiroshima and Nagasaki to know that things invisible exist and bear great power. The power to destroy. Or the power to create... Atoms and angels, reason and faith... One without the other is less than half as strong and can be a danger to our vitality. Reason is subject to the tests of logic and observable, demonstrable phenomena. Faith is tested by our desire and will. One cannot see faith, just as one cannot pour out hope or love from a beaker. Self-sacrifice and devotion escape the strongest microscope, but such qualities of spirit can be shown and known by us all... And so with God's messengers, more believed than seen, more felt than touched, our angel's exist in open hearts, if we have but faith. ”

“I am gone and am not coming back, but I remember everything.”

“I beg you to understand and accept that no matter what name, I am what I am.”

“The children will need new stories and fairy tales to see them through their nightmares and daydreams, to transfigure their sorrows and fears at not being able to remain children forever.”

“It's only a story.' As if such words made it less real. But I did not believe him even then, for stories were written down, and the words on the page were proof enough. Fixed and permanent in time, the words, if anything, made the people and places more real than the everchanging world.”

“O que a memória perde, a imaginação volta a criar.”

“October proved a riot a riot to the senses and climaxed those giddy last weeks before Halloween.”

“The flickering candlelight conspired with the silence, and we only interrupted each other’s reading to share a casual delight.”

“Write it down, boy. If you come across a passage in your reading that you’d like to remember, write it down in your little book; then you can read it again, memorize it, and have it whenever you wish.”

“I followed her into the library. The pale light from our chamber below dissipated in the room, but I could still make out – my heart leapt at the sight – row after row, shelf above shelf, floor to ceiling, a city of books. Speck turned to me and asked, Now, what shall we read first?”

“Love makes us do wicked things.”

“As I let go of the past, the past let go of me. ”

“Once I learned to read, I could not imagine my life otherwise.”