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Quote by Thom Gunn

“Your dying was a difficult enterprise. First, petty things took up your energies, The small but clustering duties of the sick, Irritant as the cough’s dry rhetoric. Those hours of waiting for pills, shot, X-ray Or test (while you read novels two a day) Already with a kind of clumsy stealth Distanced you from the habits of your health.”

Quote by Thom Gunn

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Thom Gunn
Thom Gunn

Thom Gunn was an influential British poet known for his concise and direct style. His poetry often explored the relationship between the individual and society, reflecting on modern life. Gunn's work was celebrated in the mid-20th century, and his poems have been widely translated and read. more

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“Thousands upon thousands of millions of minute and diverse individuals had come together and the product of their mutual dependence, their mutual hostility had been a human life. Their total colony, their living hive had been a man. The hive was dead. But in the lingering warmth many of the component individuals still faintly lived; soon they also would have perished. And meanwhile, from the air, the invisible hosts of saprophytics had already begun their unresisted invasion. They would live among the dead cells, they would grow, and prodigiously multiply and in their growing and procreation all the chemical building of the body would be undone, all the intricacies and complications of its matter would be resolved, till by the time their work was finished a few pounds of carbon, a few quarts of water, some lime, a little phosphorus and sulphur, a pinch of iron and silicon, a handful of mixed salts--all scattered and recombined with the surrounding world--would be all that remained of Everard Webley's ambition to rule and his love for Elinor, of his thoughts about politics and his recollections of childhood, of his fencing and good horsemanship, of that soft strong voice and that suddenly illuminating smile, of his admiration for Mantegna, his dislike of whiskey, his deliberately terrifying rages, his habit of stroking his chin, his belief in God, his incapacity to whistle a tune correctly, his unshakeable determinations and his knowledge of Russian.”

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“It is not too late... there is time still." I am dying. There are tears in my eyes. Please cradle my head in your hand. Let me look into the stars. Are they really in the sky? Or are they just in my mind because what is there I cannot see? The woman tilted her head, revealing a rim of bruising around a clean-tucked hole in her head. There was blood. Dry blood. This is more pain than a human heart can bear. Like fistfuls of fear, cries shoot from my eyes. There are tears running down my face. It is a salty, bitter taste. My wounds need care. I look up to my mom, but can think of nothing to say. I am dying. I need you. Embrace me. I am dying... "Shhhh...”

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Author:Milan Sime Martinic, Ironway: Watching Over Benjamin Hill -
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