Stairs Quotes - page 7
I walk up the stairs to my fourth-floor apartment, all alone. I let myself into my tiny little studio, all alone. I shut the door behind me. Another early bedtime in Rome. Another long night's sleep ahead of me, with nobody and nothing in my bed except a pile of Italian phrase books and dictionaries.
I am alone, I am all alone, I am completely alone.
Grasping this reality, I let go of my bag, drop to my knees, and press my forehead against the floor. There I offer up to the universe a fervent prayer of thanks.
First in English.
Then in Italian.
And then - just to get the point across - in Sanskrit.
And since I am already down there in supplication on the floor, let me hold that position as I reach back in time three years earlier to the moment where this entire story began - a moment that also found me in this exact same posture: on my knees, on a floor, praying.
Elizabeth Gilbert
Adieu, ye joys of La Valette!
Adieu, Sirocco, sun, and sweat!
Adieu, thou palace rarely entered!
Adieu, ye mansions where-I've ventured!
Adieu, ye curse'd streets of stairs!
(How surely he who mounts them swears!)
Adieu, ye merchants often failing!
Adieu, thou mob for ever railing!
Adieu, ye packets-without letters!
Adieu, ye fools-who ape your betters!
Adieu, thou damned'st quarantine,
That gave me fever, and the spleen!
And now I've got to Mrs. Fraser,
Perhaps you think I mean to praise her-
And were I vain enough to think
My praise was worth this drop of ink,
A line-or two-were no hard matter,
As here, indeed, I need not flatter:
But she must be content to shine
In better praises than in mine .
Nor ask the aid of idle song.
Lord Byron