Jim

“If we believe that love is weakness? And people resent it, because they think it’s an admission of weakness, they draw away from it… and that’s why you kill the thing you love, because it’s your weakness personified. If you kill it, you will kill your weakness before it kills you.”
― William Gaddis, The Recognitions

“The lines of her tears sparkled on her cheeks. "I am a prisoner here," she said. I took the chair across from her and watched her cry. I sat upright, one hand on the table's surface and the other around my drink. I felt the ecstasy of a dancer, but I kept still.”
― Denis Johnson, The Largesse of the Sea Maiden

“It's plain to you that at the time I write this, I'm not dead. But maybe by the time you read it.”
― Denis Johnson, The Largesse of the Sea Maiden

“Once in a while I lie there, as the television runs, and I read something wild and ancient from one of several collections of folktales I own. Apples that summon sea maidens, eggs that fulfill any wish, pears that make people grow long noses that fall off again. Then sometimes I get up and don my robe and go out into our quiet neighborhood looking for a magic thread, a magic sword, a magic horse.”
― Denis Johnson, The Largesse of the Sea Maiden