Phantoms

Famous quotes containing the word phantoms:

“How cold the vacancy
When the phantoms are gone and the shaken realist
First sees reality. The mortal no
Has its emptiness and tragic expirations.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)

“Feign then what’s by a decent tact believed
And act that state is only so conceived,
And build an edifice of form
For house where phantoms may keep warm.”
—William Empson (1906–1984)

“Most days I feel like an acrobat high above a crowd out of which my own parents, my in-laws, potential employers, phantoms of “other women who do it” and a thousand faceless eyes stare up.”
—Anonymous Mother. Ourselves and Our Children, by Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, ch. 2 (1978)