More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
“I suppose,” I say. “Still, I have the impression that elsewhere we may all have lived totally other lives, and that somehow we have forgotten that time. Have you ever felt that way?”
I always say—a prejudice on my part, I’m sure—you can tell a lot about a person’s character from his choice of sofa. Sofas constitute a realm inviolate unto themselves. This, however, is something that only those who have grown up sitting on good sofas will appreciate. It’s like growing up reading good books or listening to good music. One good sofa breeds another good sofa; one bad sofa breeds another bad sofa. That’s how it goes.
The skull is enveloped in a profound silence that seems nothingness itself. The silence does not reside on the surface, but is held like smoke within. It is unfathomable, eternal, a disembodied vision cast upon a point in the void.
There is a sadness about it, an inherent pathos. I have no words for it.
I love Lauren Bacall in Key Largo. Of course, I love Bacall in The Big Sleep too, but in Key Largo she’s practically allegorical.
Many are the women who can take their clothes off seductively, but women who can charm as they dress?
And what is identity? The cognitive system arisin’ from the aggregate memories of that individual’s past experiences. The layman’s word for this is the mind. No two human beings have the same mind. At the same time, human beings have almost no grasp of their own cognitive systems. I don’t, you don’t, nobody does. All we know—or think we know—is but a fraction of the whole cake. A mere tip of the icing.
Only where there is disillusionment and depression and sorrow does happiness arise; without the despair of loss, there is no hope.
Most human activities are predicated on the assumption that life goes on. If you take that premise away, what is there left?
“No, I really like his voice,” she said. “It’s like a kid standing at the window watching the rain.” After all the volumes that have been written about Dylan, I had yet to come across such a perfect description. She blushed when I told her that.
quiet as the interior of an iceberg.
“What time is it?” I asked.
“Nighttime,” she answered.
“The strange thing is, everything washed up from the sea was purified. Useless junk, but absolutely clean. There wasn’t a dirty thing. The sea is special in that way. When I look back over my life so far, I see all that junk on the beach. It’s how my life has always been. Gathering up the junk, sorting through it, and then casting it off somewhere else. All for no purpose, leaving it to wash away again.” “This was in your home town?” “This is all my life. I merely go from one beach to another. Sure I remember the things that happen in between, but that’s all. I never tie them together. They’re
...more
Death leaves cans of shaving cream half-used.
Sunlight traveled a long distance to reach this planet; an infinitesimal portion of that energy was enough to warm my eyelids. I was moved. That something as insignificant as an eyelid had its place in the workings of the universe, that the cosmic order did not overlook this momentary fact.
The world is full of revelations.
