John

“Someone had said, and Wilhelm agreed with the saying, that in Los Angeles all the loose objects in the country were collected, as if America had been tilted and everything that wasn’t tightly screwed down had slid into Southern California.”
― Saul Bellow, Seize the Day

“Oh, let everything pass and be forgotten—and again in two hundred years’ time an ambitious failure will vent his frustration on the simpletons dreaming of a good life (that is if there does not come my kingdom, where everyone keeps to himself and there is no equality and no authorities—but if you don’t want it, I don’t insist and don’t care).”
― Vladimir Nabokov

“Meanwhile, ominously, the education denied them now proceeded, as enough of them saw through to how deep, how empty was their ignorance.”
― Thomas Pynchon, Vineland

“It's begun,' Lenin replied. 'I'm dizzy. From being on the run to supreme power--that's too much---and according to Trotsky made the sign of the Cross.”
― Victor Sebestyen, Lenin the Dictator