"It is like some frend who preveusly was nise suden lee says some crool thing and does this nip on your flank. Even when he goes bak to being nise, yo...more"It is like some frend who preveusly was nise suden lee says some crool thing and does this nip on your flank. Even when he goes bak to being nise, you will never feel exact lee safe."
"If you want our Storys to end happy, try being niser."(less)
"Who hasn't ever wondered: am I a monster or is this what it means to be a person?"
"Just as nobody one day would teach her how to die; yet she'd surel...more"Who hasn't ever wondered: am I a monster or is this what it means to be a person?"
"Just as nobody one day would teach her how to die; yet she'd surely die one day as if she'd learned the starring role by heart. For at the hour of death a person becomes a shining movie star ..."(less)
"Ours was a postindustrial or service-based economy, so complex and highly specialized that each individual could only function within the confines of...more"Ours was a postindustrial or service-based economy, so complex and highly specialized that each individual could only function within the confines of its narrow, compartmentalized structure ... but a lot of them later admitted that they got more emotional satisfaction from their new jobs than anything closely resembling their old ones ... I know it sounds a little too Norman Rockwell, but ... That was the upshot of a more localized system. It gave people the opportunity to see the fruits of their labor, it gave them a sense of individual pride ..."
"NAME OF PATIENT YOU ARE VISITING: PAUL REDEKER."(less)
"This palm is also responsible for the betel nut, an addictive stimulant that turns teeth black and saliva red. Four hundred million people around the...more"This palm is also responsible for the betel nut, an addictive stimulant that turns teeth black and saliva red. Four hundred million people around the world consume it ... 'There is an almost orgasmic satisfaction to be found in the experience of saliva-ducts open to full throttle. Delicious above all is the aftermath: when the chew is finished, your mouth is left astonishingly fresh and sweet. You fee uniquely cleansed, drained, and purified.' "
"Historians still wonder what caused the bizarre behavior that led eight young girls to be suspected of demonic possession and witchcraft during the winer of 1962 in Salem, Massachusetts ... Eventually nineteen people went to the gallows for the crime of casting spells on the girls. They protested their innocence all the way. If only someone had thought to question the town baker. Judging from weather reports, crop records, and the girls' symptoms, and the fact that they hysteria stopped almost as abruptly as it started, it is entirely possible that the whole event was caused by an outbreak of ergot brought on by an unusually wet winter."(less)
"Achilles -- for it was Achilles -- dropped Deidameia's hand and flung himself joyously at me, knocking me backwards with the force of his embrace."
"I...more"Achilles -- for it was Achilles -- dropped Deidameia's hand and flung himself joyously at me, knocking me backwards with the force of his embrace."
"In the darkness, two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk. Their hands meet, and light spills in a flood like a hundred golden urns pouring out the sun."(less)
The lizard on the wall, engrossed, The sudden silence from the wood Are telling me that I have lost The possibility of good.
I know this flower is beautiful And yesterday it seemed to be. It openend like a crimson hand. It was not beautiful to me.
I know that work is beautiful. It is a boon. It is a good. Unless my working were a way Of squandering my solitude.
And solitude was beautiful When I was sure that I was strong. I thought it was a medium In which to grow, but I was wrong.
The jays are swearing in the wood. The lizard moves with ugly speed. The flower closes like a fist. The possibility recedes."
"Out of the West came napalm And it tumbled from the blue And it spread at the speed of the warrior wind And it clung to the heart And it clung to the soul As napalm is designed to do"
"It's the same hand on the windpipe! It's the same sand in the windsock! It's the same brand on the handbag! It's the same gland in the handjob!"(less)
"When battles are fought and won and lost, when pirates find their treasures and the dragons eat their foes for breakfast with a nice cup of Lapsang s...more"When battles are fought and won and lost, when pirates find their treasures and the dragons eat their foes for breakfast with a nice cup of Lapsang souchong, someone needs to tell their bits of overlapping narrative. There's magic in that. It's in the listener, and for each and every ear it will be different, and it will affect them in ways they can never predict. From the mundane to to the profound. You may tell a tale that takes up residence in someone's soul, becomes their blood and self and purpose. That tale will move them and drive them and who knows what they might do because of it, because of your words ... There are many kids of magic, after all."
"All empires fall eventually. It is the way of things."(less)
"Ascension creates a hunger sharp enough to consume the subject's sanity, in time. In consumers, this state is termed chronic depression."
"Time is the...more"Ascension creates a hunger sharp enough to consume the subject's sanity, in time. In consumers, this state is termed chronic depression."
"Time is the speed at which the past decays ..."
"Souls cross the skies o' time, Abbess'd say, like clouds crossin' skies o' the world. Sonmi's the east'n'west, Sonmi's the map an' the edges o' the map an' b'yonder the edges."
"Mother used to say escape is never further than the nearest book. Well, Mumsy, no, not really. Your beloved large-print sagas of rags, riches and heartbreak were no camouflage against the miseries trained on you by the tennis ball launcher of life, were they? ... Books don't offer real escape, but they can stop a mind scratching itself raw."
"One model of time: an infinite matryoshka doll of painted moments, each "shell" (the present) encased inside a nest of "shells" (previous presents) I call the actual past but which we perceive as the virtual past. The doll of "now" likewise encases a nest of presents yet to be, which I call the actual future but which we perceive as the virtual future."
"Power, time, gravity, love. The forces that really kick ass are all invisible."
"Strip back the beliefs pasted on by governesses, schools, and states, and you'll find indelible truths at ones's core. Rome'll decline and fall again, Cortes'll lay Tenochtitlan to waste again, and later, Ewing will sail again. Adrian'll be blown to pieces again, you and I'll sleep under Corsican stars again, I'll come to Bruges again, fall in and out of love with Eva again, you'll read this letter again, the sun'll grow cold again. Nietzsche's gramophone record. When it ends, the Old One plays it again, for an eternity of eternities. Time cannot permeate this sabbatical. We do not stay dead long."
"Belief is both prize & battlefield, within the mind & in the mind's mirror, the world. If we believe humanity is a ladder of tribes, a colosseum of confrontation, exploitation & bestiality, such a humanity is surely brought into being ... one fine day, a purely predatory world shall consume itself."
"In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul; for the human species, selfishness is extinction."
"A life spent shaping a world I want Jackson to inherit, not one I fearJackson shall inherit, this strikes me as a life worth living."(less)
“He was unable to resist worldly temptations, but he resisted his Gestapo torturers to the end. Like many ordinary, flawed people, he did not know his...more“He was unable to resist worldly temptations, but he resisted his Gestapo torturers to the end. Like many ordinary, flawed people, he did not know his own courage until war revealed it. Jebsen might easily have turned history in a disastrous direction to save his own skin, and he chose not to. Agent Artist was not a conventional D-Day hero, but he was a hero nonetheless.”(less)
"It was all well enough in the Southland, under the law of love and fellowship, to respect private property and personal feeling; but in the Northland...more"It was all well enough in the Southland, under the law of love and fellowship, to respect private property and personal feeling; but in the Northland, under the law of club and fang, whoso took such things into account was a fool, and in so far as he observed them he would fail to prosper."(less)
"Dress for yourself and what suits your lifestyle, and you will always look good. Style is about enhancing who you are, and not attempting to look lik...more"Dress for yourself and what suits your lifestyle, and you will always look good. Style is about enhancing who you are, and not attempting to look like someone you'll never be."
"Anorexics are geniuses at finding justifications for their behavior, and getting this job was a great example of that. If I weren't thin, I told myself, they wouldn't have hired me."(less)
"People were spread all over the Spanish Steps, resting, but in the piazza and on the streets they moved with purpose, at different speeds but in stra...more"People were spread all over the Spanish Steps, resting, but in the piazza and on the streets they moved with purpose, at different speeds but in straight lines, like a thousand bullets fired at a thousand different angles from a thousand different guns. All of these people moving in the way they thought right .. all of these stories, all of these weak, sick people with their betrayals and their dark hearts — This is the world — swirling all around him, speaking and smoking and snapping photographs ... "
"It had never before occurred to Pasquale, but an entire generation of men had been defined by the war, his father, too, and yet they rarely talked about it with one another. Pasquale had always thought of the war as one big thing, but he'd heard Alvis talk about his war as if everyone served in a separate war, a million different wars for a million different people."
"But aren't all great quests folly? El Dorado and the Fountain of Youth and the search for intelligent life in the cosmos — we know what's out there. It's what isn't that truly compels us. Technology may have shrunk the epic journey to a couple of short car rides and regional jet lags — four states and twelve hundred miles traversed in an afternoon — but true quests aren't measured in time or distance anyway, so much as in hope. There are only two good outcomes for a quest like this, the hope of the serendipitous savant — sail for Asia and stumble on America — and the hope of scarecrows and tin men, that you find out you had the thing you sought all along."
"We want what we want. At home, she works herself into a frenzy worrying about what she isn't — and perhaps loses track of just where she is."
" 'Sometimes,' she said, 'what we want to do and what we must do are not the same.' She put a hand on his shoulder. 'Pasqo, the smaller the space between your desire and what is right, the happier you will be.' " " ... how much easier life would be if our intentions and our desires could always be aligned."
"Maybe all love is hopeless."
" — and on and on it goes, in a thousand directions, everything occurring at once, in a great storm of the present, of the now — — all those lovely wrecked lives — "(less)
"'You're still trying to protect me. Real or not real,' he whispers. 'Real,' I answer. 'Because that's what you and I do, protect each other.'"
"What I...more"'You're still trying to protect me. Real or not real,' he whispers. 'Real,' I answer. 'Because that's what you and I do, protect each other.'"
"What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again."(less)
" ... I might realize that to understand the world, one's place in it, is to be always at the risk of drowning."
"It reminded me of talking, how what i...more" ... I might realize that to understand the world, one's place in it, is to be always at the risk of drowning."
"It reminded me of talking, how what is said is never quite what was thought, and what is heard is never quite what was said. It wasn't much in the way of comfort, but everything has a little failure in it, and we still make do somehow."(less)
"'One of my dad's colleagues said, "She wants to paint with her shit. Maybe we should give her paints." And it worked.' Mary Barnes eventually became...more"'One of my dad's colleagues said, "She wants to paint with her shit. Maybe we should give her paints." And it worked.' Mary Barnes eventually became a celebrated and widely exhibited artist. Her paintings were greatly admired in the 1960s and 1970s for illustrating the mad, colorful, painful, exuberant, complicated inner life of a schizophrenic. 'And it got rid of the smell of shit,' Adrian said."(less)
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