Paul Bowles Quotes

Running at night used to frighten me. Part of it was simply safety, the question of whether level ground would truly appear under each tentative footstep, and whether the temporary but complete blindness suffered while running toward headlights was, in fact, concealing death.

I've always had this in a kind of worst-case dark imagination. I want to know what the dark form in the window is. I want to know what the noise under the staircase is.

Dread of night. Dread of not-night.

We shall see that at which dogs howl in the dark, and that at which cats prick up their ears after midnight.

The streets were dark with something more than night.

Darkness might seem to obscure what's happening, but I find it's always pretty revelatory: it brings out the awe in us, the fear in us, the excitement of exploring the hidden or unknown. It seems to conceal, but it really shines a light on what we want, what we need, and what we'll do to get it. Especially when we think no one can see us.

Here, in this same city, the blood of Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims mingled in the bloodbath ... I am grieved to think that things have come to such a pass that no Muslim can go about in Amritsar and no Hindu or Sikh can even think of living in Lahore. The butchery of innocent and defenseless men, women and children does not behoove brave men ... I am quite certain that India's interest lies in getting all her men and women across the border and sending out all Muslims from East Punjab. I have come to you with a specific appeal. Pledge the safety of Muslim refugees crossing the city. Any obstacles or hindrances will only worsen the plight of our refugees who are already performing prodigious feats of endurance. If we have to fight, we must fight clean. Such a fight must await an appropriate time and conditions and you must be watchful in choosing your ground. To fight against the refugees is no fight at all. No laws of humanity or war among honorable men permit the murder of people who have sought shelter and protection. Let there be truce for three months in which both sides can exchange their refugees. This sort of truce is permitted even by laws of war. Let us take the initiative in breaking this vicious circle of attacks and counter-attacks. Hold your hands for a week and see what happens. Make way for the refugees with your own force of volunteers and let them deliver the refugees safely at our frontier.

Madison Avenue is afraid of the dark.

"You need hedges.""Hedges," I said, bemused. "Yes, Edgar." He looked surprised and a little disappointed, as if I had failed to understand a very simple concept. "Hedges against the night."

Blessed be the night, which conceals and protects things fair and foul with the same indifferent mantle.

The night swallowed him up like a thieving fox.

Tonight the sky was utterly black. Perhaps there was no moon tonight—a lunar eclipse, a new moon. A new moon. I shivered, though I wasn't cold.

Each evening, I ached for the shelter of my tent, for the smallest sense that something was shielding me from the entire rest of the world, keeping me safe not from danger, but from vastness itself. I loved the dim, clammy dark of my tent, the cozy familiarity of the way I arranged my few belongings all around me each night.

I was nearly unnerved at my proximity to a nameless thing at the bottom of a pit.

But sometimes, maybe most times, it isn't that clear. It is dark and you are near the edge of a cliff, but you're moving slowly, not sure which direction you're heading in. Your steps are tentative but they are still blind in the night. You don't realize how close you are to the edge, how the soft earth could give away, how you could just slip a bit and suddenly plunge into the dark.

If you cannot bear the silence and the darkness, do not go there; if you dislike black night and yawning chasms, never make them your profession. If you fear the sound of water hurrying through crevices toward unknown and mysterious destinations, do not consider it. Seek out the sunshine. It is a simple prescription. Avoid the darkness.

It is darker in the woods, even in common nights, than most suppose.

Come, seeling night, Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day, And with thy bloody and invisible hand Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond Which keeps me pale. Light thickens, and the crow Makes wing to th' rooky wood. Good things of day begin to droop and drowse, While night's black agents to their prey do rouse.

Light our fire and protect us from the dark, blah blah, light our way and keep us toasty warm, the night is dark and full of terrors, save us from the scary things, and blah blah blah some more.

All I know is a door into the dark

Awful Night! Ancestral mystery of mysteries.

The stars are always up in the sky...then when it is perfectly black, they feel less vulnerable and out they come.

The converse held reassuringly true: daylight was safe. Daylight was always safe.

Already with thee! tender is the night. . . But here there is no light. . .

Everyone is small at night.