Aye.' It's a good word, I think. More a whole attitude than a word, really. With lots of meaning in it, too. A bit of 'yes' and a bit of 'well, fuck' and maybe some 'we're all in this mess together'. So, a word to sum up the Malazans.

In that etymological light nostalgia seems something like the pain of ignorance, of not knowing. You are far away, and I don’t know what has become of you. My country is far away, and I don’t know what is happening there.

The Lord seems far away at times, though I can’t reason why He was right here, just yesterday, as I was passing by I told Him in the morning that my time was really tight But promised I would talk with Him, sometime, perhaps that night Yet as the shadows cast their gloom ‘round evening colors deep I barely whispered thanks to Him as I fell off to sleep The Lord seems far away at times, the reasons: hard to say He tried to reach me in my thoughts, but work pushed Him away I promised Him at lunchtime I would read His Word and pray Instead I worked right past my meal and through the rest of day At dinnertime I bowed my head, to Him I gave a nod — And wondered, as I watched TV, where’s time to spend with God? If God seems far away at times, the reasons are all mine He’s always there to hear my prayers, yet He must wait in line There’s time each day to talk with Him, to read His word and pray When it seems God’s not reachable, it’s ‘cause I walked away He’s never changed His whereabouts, His steadfastness He’s proved If God seems far away from me... it wasn’t God who moved. ~Michele Dellapenta

Home is so far from home.

"The Apache don't have a word for love," he said.
"Know what they both say at the marriage? The squaw-taking ceremony?"
"Tell me."
"Varlebena. It means forever. That's all they say."

We are lost, she and I, unseen and not seeing, unheard and not hearing, unknown by others.

In a sense, I'm used to a kind of linguistic exile. My mother tongue, Bengali, is foreign in America. When you live in a country where your own language is considered foreign, you can feel a continuous sense of estrangement. You speak a secret, unknown language, lacking any correspondence to the environment. An absence that creates a distance within you.

Feeling far away from what we want tells us one of two things about our work: that we are at the beginning or that we have forgotten where we were going.

Who sighs from far away?

Often compound words have drifted so far from their etymological roots that native speakers can easily miss what is right in front of their eyes.

Every word, every gesture is now loaded with ambiguity, nothing can be taken at face value. We speak to each other from a safe distance, pretending all the years we soaped each other's backs and pissed in front of each other never happened. We don't use any of the baby talk, code words, or short hand gestures that had been our language of intimacy, the proof that we belonged to each other.

I hear from afar the shouts of that false wisdom which is ever dragging us onwards, counting the present as nothing, and pursuing without pause a future which flies as we pursue, that false wisdom which removes us from our place and never brings us to any other.

"It is a long way off, sir"
"From what Jane?"
"From England and from Thornfield: and ___"
"Well?"
"From you, sir"

That thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you is usually what you need to find, and finding it is a matter of getting lost. The word ‘lost’ comes from the old Norse ‘los’ meaning the disbanding of an army…I worry now that people never disband their armies, never go beyond what they know.

Advertising, alarmist news, technology, incessant busyness, and the design of public and private life conspire to make it so. A recent article about the return of wildlife to suburbia described snow-covered yards in which the footprints of animals are abundant and those of children are entirely absent. Children seldom roam, even in the safest places… I wonder what will come of placing this generation under house arrest.