Varieties of Disturbance: Stories

by Lydia Davis

Yet my confusion must be this: though her body is old, her capacity for betrayal is still young and fresh.

there are such beautiful passages in the book that I think I have become beautiful myself.

I might as well be sitting in the garden of the insane asylum staring into space like an idiot.

I feel I am being buried alive under all these thoughts, though at the same time I feel compelled to lie still, since perhaps I am actually dead after all.

For a moment it seemed incomprehensible to me that anyone would build a whole city when all that is needed was a room for her.

If she does not come it would be wrong to say I will miss her, because she is always so present in my imagination.

I have faith that she will come, though along with my faith is the same fear that always accompanies my faith, the fear that has been inherent in all faith, anyway, since the beginning of time.

At these times I appear to be paralyzed with indecision while my thoughts are beating furiously within my head, just as a dragonfly appears to hang motionless in midair while its wings are beating furiously against the steady breeze.

Our words are so often those of some unknown, alien being. I don’t believe any speeches anymore. Even the most beautiful speech contains a worm.

for if being alone in a room is necessary for life itself, being alone in an apartment is necessary if one is to be happy.

We tried different ways of saying what we meant, but we weren’t really lovers at that moment, just grammarians.

No one sings as purely as those who inhabit the deepest hell—you think you’re hearing the song of angels but it is that other song. Yet I decided to keep on living a little while longer, at least through the night.