Phantoms

Famous quotes containing the word phantoms:

    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)

    Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep—
    He hath awakened from the dream of life—
    ‘Tis we, who lost in stormy visions, keep
    With phantoms an unprofitable strife.
    Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)