Peter > Peter's Quotes

“[Question: What elements in the lives of these two were symbolically suggested by their meeting again and their conversation?]”
― Haruki Murakami, First Person Singular: Stories

“The mouth snaked toward the narrow crack where Paul and Jessica huddled. Cinnamon yelled in their nostrils. Moonlight flashed from crystal teeth.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“He knew this was among the alternatives today, a fact along lines of the future radiating from this position in time-space.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“There was something obscene about a billionaire’s being optimistic and aggressive and cunning.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan

“This brother seemed the type who had to make a racket, whatever he did.”
― Haruki Murakami, First Person Singular: Stories

“It was a marvelous engine for doing violence to the spirit of thousands of laws without actually running afoul of so much as a city ordinance.”
― Kurt Vonnegut Jr., The Sirens of Titan

“All living things were brothers, and all dead things were even more so.”
― Kurt Vonnegut Jr., The Sirens of Titan

“Just for once, Binabik, I want you to tell me there is an answer for something. I’m tired of thinking so much.” The troll laughed. “The punishment for being born . . . no, perhaps that is too much to be calling that. The punishment for being truly alive—that is fair to say. Welcome, Simon, to the world of those who are every day condemned to thinking and wondering and never ever knowing with certainness.”
― Tad Williams, To Green Angel Tower

“As solemn music played, vying with the harsh wind to be heard, the thought came to many of those who watched that although Sesuad’ra’s defenders had won an improbable and heroic victory, they had paid dearly for it. The fact that they had defeated only the tiniest portion of the forces arrayed against them, and had lost nearly half their number in doing so, made the winter-shrouded hillcrest seem an even colder and lonelier place.”
― Tad Williams, To Green Angel Tower

“All four of their glossy mouths making squealing sounds of monstrous love that hurt my face. I love you, Bunny.”
― Mona Awad, Bunny

“My point is—my question is—how in the world can anyone get married and make babies with things the way they are now?”
― Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower

“I like Curtis Talcott a lot. Maybe I love him. Sometimes I think I do. He says he loves me. But if all I had to look forward to was marriage to him and babies and poverty that just keeps getting worse, I think I’d kill myself.”
― Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower

“Never did he succeed in getting what he wanted out of life and he did not know what he wanted.”
― Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio

“Estranged from family and friends While racking our brains whether The world we see is truly out there, Or it never leaves our minds.”
― Charles Simic, Come Closer and Listen: New Poems – From Pulitzer Prize Winner Charles Simic, Wry and Haunting Poetry on Love, Grief, and Empathy

“I inherited him from my grandfather. My family had a carnival. He was one of the acts. My grandfather died and the parrot hasnt spoken since. Sort of like my grandfather’s clock.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Passenger

“Do you carry a gun? No. I own one. You think I should carry it? Statistically it will shorten your life, not lengthen it. The unpleasant truth is that if someone is trying to kill you there is not a whole lot you can do about it. Your only real safety would be in disappearing. And even with that there are no guarantees.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Passenger

“I dont suppose you have any glasses. They’re in the kitchen. Western started to get up. I dont think you want to go back there. He sat back down again. It aint a pretty sight. Sink’s so full of dishes you got to go outside to take a leak.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Passenger

“Western took a drink and passed the bottle back. Borman drank. The brown liquor boiled in the bottle. When he lowered it the bottle was a third gone and his eyes were watering. He wiped his mouth and held the bottle out. Hell, Western. I’ve drunk worse liquor than that. Here.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Passenger

“I think that if there was a reason then that would just be one more thing to inquire about. My notion is you probably make up reasons after you’ve decided what it is you’re goin to do. Or not do.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Passenger

“Borman looked around. Somewhere out here the last ivorybill died. Thirty years ago probably. I still listen for them. What sense does that make? They’re gone forever. I didnt know you were a bird watcher. I’m not. I’m a forever watcher. Forever is a long time.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Passenger

“It’s just that the passing of time is irrevocably the passing of you. And then nothing.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Passenger

“If someone said to you that you had thrown your life away over a woman what would you say? Well thrown.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Passenger

“Really. Been married once. No children. Amicably divorced. I dont have any tragedies in my life to give it a form and destination outside of my control. I like what I’m doing. But I could be doing something else. I’ve been blessed. I’m not even sure I’d change the bad things. Here comes the food.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Passenger

“I observe too that the bed is neither too hard nor too soft. It’s a perfect bed. Just right. Goldilocks could set up shop here forever. Masturbate. I picture Goldilocks brazenly masturbating in this bed while the Three Bears watch. She is daring them with her slitty eyes to tell her to stop. The Bears are too polite to say anything. I laugh at what a picture that makes. Ha. Hahaha.”
― Mona Awad, Bunny

“I look at the dress. It’s got kittens licking ice cream cones all over it. The kittens are wearing slightly askew crowns.”
― Mona Awad, Bunny

“Their cheeks are plump and pink and shining like they’ve been eating too much sugar, but actually it’s Gossip Glow, the flushed look that comes from throwing another woman under the bus.”
― Mona Awad, Bunny

“let me write my music not for earth alone, but for the worlds”
― Sun Ra, this planet is doomed

“yet underneath it all it’s not in conscience another self hidden not in shame because sarcastically been on rushing from its hiding place and taken under its known this tale this proud, this boastful braggart of circumstance and dream that something calls life”
― Sun Ra, this planet is doomed

“Reggie crosses the room to his wife, because in fifty-six years of marriage, she has never crossed the room to him.”
― Tess Gunty, The Rabbit Hutch

“James watches a line of ants march out of the kitchen drain, up the sink, into his life.”
― Tess Gunty, The Rabbit Hutch