Beatrix

“(And did I mention how in summer the streets of Smyrna were lined with baskets of rose petals? And how everyone in the city could speak French, Italian, Greek, Turkish, English, and Dutch? And did I tell you about the famous figs, brought in by camel caravan and dumped onto the ground, huge piles of pulpy fruit lying in the dirt, with dirty women steeping them in salt water and children squatting to defecate behind the clusters? Did I mention how the reek of the fig women mixed with pleasanter smells of almond trees, mimosa, laurel, and peach, and how everybody wore masks on Mardi Gras and had elaborate dinners on the decks of frigates? I want to mention these things because they all happened in that city that was no place exactly, that was part of no country because it was all countries, and because now if you go there you'll see modern high-rises, amnesiac boulevards, teeming sweatshops, a NATO headquarters, and a sign that says Izmir...)”
― Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex

“The water looks really nice like this,” Allen says.
“Yeah,” you say, looking like you are looking at the water, or, at least, how you imagine you would look looking like you are looking at the water.
You look at the water and don’t say anything.
Then you peek, just for a second, to look at Allen.
Allen isn’t even looking at the water.
He’s crying about something.”
― Mike Kleine, Mastodon Farm

“Practise your confidence tricks on the street and you risk getting shot by trigger-happy security guards; do it in the office and you get put on the board.”
― James Scudamore, Heliopolis

“Howie's troubles were a favorite family topic, and behind the shaking heads and oh it's so sads you could hear the joy pushing right up through because doesn't every family like having one person who's fucked up so fantastically that everyone else feels like a model citizen next to him?”
― Jennifer Egan, The Keep