Epigrams for
Little Knives

While the quotations below do not appear in the collection itself, they served as inspiration.

For those who enjoy that kind of thing, read on.

THE UNHAPPY RESURRECTION
OF WINSTON BIGGS

"He who sees only with the eyes is very blind."
— Zora Neale Hurston, "Black Death"

"Seek out - less often sought than found -
A soldier's grave, for thee the best;
Then look around, and choose thy ground,
And take thy rest."
— George Gordon, Lord Byron, "On this Day that I Complete My Thirty-Sixth Year"

HEIRLOOM

"...he must shave off all his hair; he must shave his head, his beard, his eyebrows, and the rest of his hair..."
— Leviticus 14:9

"L'homme est, je vous l'avoue, un méchant animal."
— Moliere, Tartuffe, Act V, Scene VI

MORE THAN KISSES

"Sir, more than kisses, letters mingle souls."
— John Donne, Letters to Severall Personages, "To Sir Henry Wotton"

"Be as careful of the books you read, as of the company you keep; for your habits and character will be as much influenced by the former as by the latter."
— Edwin Paxton Hood, The New Dictionary of Thoughts

FRUITS OF LABOR

"The heart is the only workman we cannot excuse."
— Emily Dickinson

   "…my high-blown pride
At length broke under me, and now has left me
Weary and old with service, to the mercy
Of a rude stream that must for ever hide me."
— William Shakespeare, Henry VIII, Act III, Scene 2

"What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun? One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever. "
— Ecclesiastes 1:3-4

PIN AND FORK

"…the first lesson of history is the good of evil. Good is a good doctor, but Bad is sometimes a better."
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Conduct of Life, VII: Considerations by the Way

"Crows are universally black."
— Chinese Proverb

COSMETICS

"For all along the valley, down thy rocky bed,
The living voice to me was as the voice of the dead,
And all along the valley, by rock and cave and tree,
The voice of the dead was as a living voice to me.
— Alfred Lord Tennyson, "In the Valley of Cauteretz"

"Being a woman is a terrible difficult trade, since it consists principally of dealing with men."
— Joseph Conrad, "Chance: A Tale in Two Parts"

NO MAN

"The mouse let fall the altar-crumb,
The worms drew back into their mounds,"
— Thomas Hardy, "Channel Firing"

"Fear is the tax that conscience pays to guilt."
— Dr. George Sewell, d. 1726

WHEN YOU WISH

"Well now, everything dies, baby that's a fact.
But maybe everything that dies one day comes back."
— Bruce Springsteen, "Atlantic City"

"(Fate is kind, she brings to those who love
The sweet fulfillment of their secret longing)"
— Ned Washington, "When You Wish Upon A Star"

SOMEWHERE, BEYOND THE SEA

"Somewhere beyond the sea
Somewhere waiting for me
My lover stands on golden sands
And watches the ships that go sailin."
— Charles Trenet, "Beyond the Sea (La Mer)"

PREPARE A FACE

"There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question to your plate."
— T.S. Eliot, The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock

FIXING A HOLE

"I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in,
And stops my mind from wandering where it will go."
— Lennon & McCartney, "Fixing a Hole"

POST

"He hath shook hands with time."
— John Ford, The Broken Heart, Act V, Scene II