Mortal Coils is a collection of five short fictional pieces written by Aldous Huxley in 1922.
The title uses a phrase from Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1:
- ... To die, to sleep,
- To sleep, perchance to dream; aye, there's the rub,
- For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come,
- When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
- Must give us pause ...
The stories all concern themselves with some sort of trouble, normally of an amorous nature, and often ending with disappointment.
Read more about Mortal Coils: The Stories
Famous quotes containing the words mortal and/or coils:
“I could bear to suffer ... so many have suffered. But why must it be like this? I have not deserved it. I have been true in friendship; I have faithfully nursed others in sickness.... Why must I die like this, alone with my mortal enemy?”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)
“Squalor spreads its hideous length
through the carts and the asses’ feet,
squalor coils and reopens
and creeps under barrow
and heap of refuse....”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)