Kyle Thomas Hemingway: The ephemera edit

“For better or worse, there are few things so disarming as one who laughs well at her own expense.”

“I only wanted absolute quiet to think out why I had developed a sad attitude toward sadness, a melancholy attitude toward melancholy and a tragic attitude toward tragedy—why I had become identified with the objects of my horror or compassion.”

“There is considerable hypocrisy in conventionalism. Any thinking person is aware of this paradox; but in dealing with conventional people it is advantageous to treat them as though they were not hypocrites. It isn’t a question of faithfulness to your own concepts; it is a matter of compromise so that you can remain an individual without the constant threat of conventional pressures.”

“I want no weeping. We must look death in the face. Silence! Be quiet, I said! Tears, when you’re alone. We will all drown ourselves in a sea of mourning. The youngest daughter of Bernarda Alba has died a virgin. Did you hear me? Silence! Silence, I said! Silence!”

“The road to Manderley lay ahead. There was no moon. The sky above our heads was inky black. But the sky on the horizon was not dark at all. It was shot with crimson, like a splash of blood. And the ashes blew towards us with the salt wind from the sea.”

“Remember: The rules, like streets, can only take you to known places.”

“Evelyn Nesbit’s life, in the end, was little different from the lives of millions of others, a story of perseverance and determination, of achievement and independence, that nothing could finally diminish.”