David Gallin-Parisi

“But that did not make Mirko happy - the world was melting away; what was a grade compared with the world? He gazed through the windows and watched the thickly falling snow.”
― Josip Novakovich, Infidelities: Stories of War and Lust

“I was assigned a public defender. We were all hopeful things would go differently. They did not go differently. They went this way.”
― Rachel Kushner, The Mars Room

“If you want to see how far we have not come from the cave and the woods, from the lonely and dangerous days of the prarie or the plain, witness the reaction of a modern suburban family, nearly ready for bed, when the doorbell rings or the door is rattled. They will stop where they stand, or sit bolt upright in their beds, as if a streak of pure lightning has passed through the house. Eyes wide, voices fearful, they will whisper to each other, "There's someone at the door," in a way that might make you believe they have always feared and anticipated this moment - that they have spent their lives being stalked.”
― Alice McDermott

“Janet Malcolm had famously described journalism as the art of seduction and betrayal. Any reporter who didn't see journalism as "morally indefensible" was either "too stupid" or "too full of himself," she wrote. I disagreed. Without shutting the door on the possibility that I was both stupid and full of myself, I'd never bought into the seduction and betrayal conceit. At most, journalism - particularly when writing about media-hungry public figures - was like the seduction of a prostitute. The relationship was transactional. They weren't talking to me because they liked me or because I impressed them; they were talking to me because they wanted the cover of Rolling Stone.”
― michael hastings, The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan