Shawn

“No one ever did anything mean to anyone else yet save for their good, and so it will be until the end of this frail planet.

"The Staircase”
― Hugh Walpole, All Souls' Night

“During my early youth I carried all my earthly goods in my pants and coat pockets, that is when I had a coat, because I had to be ready to travel at any hour no matter where I happened to be, mostly on account of merciless truant officers. Since then, having become in the meantime well-to-do, I carried all my earthly riches in that shaky cardboard box. It makes you wonderfully independent.

Even had these good men not asked for it, even had they not so highly solicited my medical knowledge, I would still have taken the medicine box along with me. This I did entirely instinctively and out of long and often very bitter experience. For it had often happened to me in the past that, when I thought of leaving my residence for only one hour, upon regaining full consciousness I discovered that I had landed on a different continent. Through such experiences one learns to become careful, so that toothbrush, shaving kit and a little pocket compass were constantly buttoned up inside my back pants pocket. How would I know where I might land if I flew away with these three nightbirds? ("Midnight Call")”
― B. Traven, The Night Visitor and Other Stories

“The Chief seemed not to care much about my opinion; he wanted to talk and so I let him continue. The greatest pleasure one can give people is to let them talk all they want. One is respected much more if one lets people talk instead of talking himself. No one has the least interest in hearing somebody else’s opinion. ("Midnight Call")”
― B. Traven, The Night Visitor and Other Stories

“Then Mr. Pratt handed me a map.

The less said about this map, the better. You can put anything you like upon a map: roads, rivers, villages, towns, grasslands, water pools, mountain passes, and plenty more. Paper is patient, it won’t refuse anything; but though a river or a bridge appears on a map it doesn’t mean that you’re going to find it where it is supposed to be. (The Cattle Drive)”
― B. Traven, The Night Visitor and Other Stories