We Have Ignition, on Dispatch from the Razor's Edge

"This could lead to excellence
Or serious injury
Only one way to know
Go, go, go
Go ahead, wreck your life
That might be good
Who can say what's wrong or right?
Nobody can"
- They Might Be Giants

"Well the good ol' days may not return,
And the rocks might melt and the sea may burn…
Well, some say life will beat you down,
Break your heart, steal your crown
So I've started out for God knows where,
I guess I'll know when I get there"
- Tom Petty

"Alike for those who for TO-DAY prepare,
  And those that after some TO-MORROW stare,
  A Muezzin from the Tower of Darkness cries,
  Fools! your Reward is neither Here nor There.

Of threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise!
  One thing at least is certain – This Life flies;
  One thing is certain and the rest is Lies;
  The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.

When You and I behind the Veil are past,
  Oh, but the long, long while the World shall last,
  Which of our Coming and Departure heeds
  As the Sea's self should heed a pebble-cast."
        - Omar Khayyam

"In the beginning, you said that if it was quiet I wanted, I would like it here. Yes, I am taken with the peace and tranquility of the Town. I also know that if I stay on at the expense of my mind, that peace and tranquility will become total. Very likely, I will regret leaving this Town for the rest of my life. Yet I cannot stay . . . What I lose would be eternal."
- Haruki Murakami

"I stopped to take a last look at my scrap heap of an apartment. Once again, life had a lesson to teach me: It takes years to build up, it takes moments to destroy. Sure, I'd gotten tired of this tiny space, but I'd had a good home here. In the time it takes to swill two cans of beer, all had sublimed like morning mist. My job, my whiskey, my peace and quiet, my solitude, my Somerset Maugham and John Ford collections – all of it trashed and worthless. The splendor of the fields, the glory of the flowers, I recited under my breath. Then I reached up and pulled the breaker switch to cut the electricity."
- ibid

"I had the clothes I stood up in, some loose cash, my passport, and my letter of credit. I felt so free, I laughed out loud."
- W. Somerset Maugham

somerset maugham omar khayyam change my exodus

Dispatch from the Razor's Edge is owned and operated by novelist, technologist, vegan, exercise junkie, classical liberal, rambler, and Londoner Michael Stephen Fuchs.

Fuchs is the author of the novels The Manuscript and Pandora's Sisters, both published worldwide by Macmillan in hardback, paperback and all e-book formats (and in translation); the D-Boys series of high-tech, high-concept, spec-ops military adventure novels – D-Boys, Counter-Assault, and Close Quarters Battle (coming in 2016); and is co-author, with Glynn James, of the bestselling Arisen series of special-operations military ZA novels. The second nicest thing anyone has ever said about his work was: "Fuchs seems to operate on the narrative principle of 'when in doubt put in a firefight'." (Kirkus Reviews, more here.)

Fuchs was born in New York; schooled in Virginia (UVa); and later emigrated to the San Francisco Bay Area, where he lived through the dot-com boom. Subsequently he decamped for an extended period of tramping before finally rocking up in London, where he now makes his home. He does a lot of travel blogging, most recently of some very long walks around the British Isles. He's been writing and developing for the web since 1994 and shows no particularly hopeful signs of stopping.

You can reach him on .

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Dispatch from the Razor's Edge is owned and operated by novelist, technologist, vegan, exercise junkie, classical liberal, rambler, and Londoner Michael Stephen Fuchs.


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