China Day 51: ,

China Day 51: 陕西, 华山

In a country as populous as China, finding open space to breathe and stretch one's legs is a rare treat. When the air is smog-free and the view in all directions is nothing but misty mountains and sun-soaked clouds, there's really nothing that could be said to adequately describe the experience of just standing over what seems like the edge of the world. 

You're riding a train at night across some vast plain, and you catch a glimpse of a tiny light in a window of a farmhouse. In an instant it's sucked back into the darkness behind and vanishes. But if you close your eyes, that point of light stays with you, just barely, for a few moments.

Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami

Sometimes I’m terrified of my heart; of its constant hunger for whatever it is it wants. The way it stops and starts.

Edgar Allan Poe (via gtbunburywrites)

The master says it’s a glorious thing to die for the Faith and Dad says it’s a glorious thing to die for Ireland and I wonder if there’s anyone in the world who would like us to live.

Frank McCourt, Angela's Ashes

“It seems to me," said Magid finally, as the moon became clearer than the sun, "that you have tried to love a man as if he were an island and you were shipwrecked and you could mark the land with an X. It seems to me it is too late in the day for all that." Then he gave her a kiss on the forehead that felt like a baptism and she wept like a baby.

White Teeth by Zadie Smith

Da Prez in Hyde Park