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Quote by John Pipkin

“Here the sky is wrapped in silk. The breathings of so many men and animals, and the smoke of your coal, and the fog, oh, it is too much. The Paris sky is perfect. A man must see clearly, to see something new.”

Book:The Blind Astronomer's Daughter

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The Blind Astronomer's Daughter

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John Pipkin

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“Sometimes he counts himself to sleep by imagining the miles between stars like the succession of footsteps cleaving him from his home, as if mastering the distance in thought might blunt the separation. But if a man cannot return to the place of his birth, then what is there to stay his restless feet? What center will hold him from wandering endlessly? It should not be so difficult, he thinks, to know one’s place in the order of things.”

Science Fiction Novel Astronomy

Book:The Blind Astronomer's Daughter

Source: The Blind Astronomer's Daughter

“Time lost to pointless delay can never be regained. It is the most reprehensible kind of theft. Why was it that men did not grasp this simple fact? Money comes and goes and comes again, and knowledge can be acquired and forgotten and rediscovered, but time once lost is lost for good, each passing second irretrievable.”

Time Fiction Novel

Book:The Blind Astronomer's Daughter

Source: The Blind Astronomer's Daughter

“He tracks the rise and fall of the glittering darkness thronged with specks and tendrils of luminous secrets. Falling stars crackle in the cold air and prickle his skin. They flash in the corner of his vision where the eye’s discernment of light and shadow is most acute.”

Science Fiction Novel Astronomy

Book:The Blind Astronomer's Daughter

Source: The Blind Astronomer's Daughter

“The same ratios that govern music give laws to optics and to the movement of the heavens as well. Simple. Elegant. Predictable.”

Science Fiction Novel Astronomy

Book:The Blind Astronomer's Daughter

Source: The Blind Astronomer's Daughter

“...but at night when he turns the awkward [telescope] skyward, he catches his breath at the clarity of the image and the vast populations of stars unknown to him until then, the riotous glittering in the dark crevices between constellations, a convocation of bright spirits waiting to be found.”

Science Fiction Novel Astronomy

Book:The Blind Astronomer's Daughter

Source: The Blind Astronomer's Daughter

“Sketches of mad skies spilling stars caught in spiraling gyres, diagrams for constructing sextants tall as a man and armillary spheres to mimic the motion of the cosmos. He decides that he must have all of it, that he will cram the little observatory with maps and charts, clocks and compasses, and instruments for bringing the sky nearer.”

Science Fiction Novel Astronomy

Author:John Pipkin

“As the eclipse progresses, a confusion of chattering birds sweeps low in search of dusk and their shadows skip over the water’s surface and it makes perfect sense that these small creatures should be so moved by events beyond their reckoning.”

Science Fiction Novel Astronomy

Book:The Blind Astronomer's Daughter

Source: The Blind Astronomer's Daughter

“Life does not accommodate you; it shatters you. Every seed destroys its container, or else there would be no fruition.”

Life Life Lessons

Book:The Measure of My Days: One Woman's Vivid, Enduring Celebration of Life and Aging

Source: The Measure of My Days: One Woman's Vivid, Enduring Celebration of Life and Aging

“So we will cover every possibility. We will take turns at the telescope. I will keep watch in the day, and at night you will take my place, and together we will see to it that no part of the sky goes unobserved.”

Science Fiction Novel Astronomy

Book:The Blind Astronomer's Daughter

Source: The Blind Astronomer's Daughter

“Fiction operates through the senses, and I think one reason that people find it so difficult to write stories is that they forget how much time and patience is required to convince through the senses. No reader who doesn't actually experience, who isn't made to feel, the story is going to believe anything the fiction writer merely tells him. The first and most obvious characteristic of fiction is that it deals with reality through what can be seen, heard, smelt, tasted, and touched.”

Writing Fiction Novel Writers Writers On Writing Writing Quotes How To Write Fiction

Book:Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

Source: Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

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