Laura Riding Jackson

“We live on the circumference of a hollow circle. We draw the circumference, like spiders, out of ourselves: it is all criticism of criticism.”

“Ah, the minutes twinkle in and outAnd in and out come and goOne by one, none by none,What we know, what we don't know.”

“As stone suffers of stoniness,As light of its shiningness,As birds of their wingedness,So I of my whoness.And what the cure of all this?What the not and not suffering?What the better and later of this?What the more me of me?How for the pain-world to beMore world and no pain?How for the faithful rain to fallMore wet and more dry?How for the wilful blood to runMore salt-red and sweet-white?And how for me in my actualnessTo more shriek and more smile?By no other miracles,By the same knowing poison,By an improved anguish,By my further dying.”

“the words are only part of the poeticformula: the rest is ritual, and thereason in THEM must contend with themechanics of magic-making in IT -- andmust not win.”

“She saw that the world was evil and yet craved for happines in it, which she thought to get by being evil herself. And she had no more happiness than I have had -- who chose the other way. There was something that was the same in each of us: we were alike in that we hated the world, and yet saw that it could not have been otherwise. And we both tried to love in spite of this hate: perhaps she was more successful than I. Therefore do not talk lightly of a new start. Evil as the old things were, they were all that we had. And if you feel that they are gone now, be sorrowful -- for it will be a long time before new things come to replace them, and we cannot say how much better they will be.”