Litnet

"The night is an ancient stellar theatre
where cosmic symphonies are heard.
It has an orchestra without a conductor
playing music in counterpoint"

"In Paris at midday on a day in May we emerged from the métro at the Place Maubert. In that tiny square the Huguenots were burned at the stake, I’d read, and I remarked to him that the screams must have been awful."

"A few years ago, I travelled to my hometown – by bus, because I couldn’t muster enough courage to take my car to travel all those many kilometres on my own."

"this perhaps a glorious destiny 
scattered stardust in an infinite Salty Sea"

"I don’t see a hopeful future. I see the back of my little girl’s head the last time I was here. The red rash on her neck."

"The name Pretorius sent a shock of frigidity into Nella’s heart. She shuddered. She thought of her blonde husband and what she had heard about a blonde man with the Pretorius girl."

"I am your son, and we are alike in so many ways. Yes, I like boys, but only to play with. But girls, girls I love. Only girls."

"Twenty-nine minutes before her exit, Heaven-Leigh wanted something to eat – vetkoek with golden syrup. No, not an apple. Vetkoek with syrup ..."

"Thus the dead speak swift as the wind?
The chiming tunes, 
The thumbing thunder that rolls, 
smashing the hills in moments of grace."

"Where do you come from, little one 
from the soil that births stone and cement 
endlessly perfect control 
souls searching for meaning."

"Thick candles enjoy the heat. Though their glow melts 
those next to them, wax drips and widens
their feet – their foundations grow." 

"In the beginning, we obeyed whatever they said. Everything we heard about this unknown virus was terrifying. How unstoppable it was. How it could leap from person to person like contagious lightning. How slim the chances were of surviving it. How horrible the death that resulted. The human race had no immunity ..."

"In this world, each person is protected by an armour of rights, and all who infringe shall face the smite of justice for their transgression."

"The days, bursting with purpose, 
now linger 
between the hours 
of empty sunrises" 

"Jy hoort by ’n wêreldkongres –
hervormer, strateeg, raadgewer, planmaker, volharder."

"I buried my secrets in the ground
getting dirtier"

"When we met, I was someone, we both never knew"

"Retreat, slowly, without turning around,
over the field, past the dam, past the baby cow crying in its pen"

"Now, my Prince, I can hear your chariots
thundering towards the once sublime city
you left behind, and I tremble, my Prince"

"And the people came together to lift South Africa up again. To love her again, appreciate her beauty and appreciate that they themselves were enough."