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“It’s not bad people I fear so much as good people. When a person is sure that he is good, he is nearly hopeless; he gets cruel- he believes in punishment.”
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“It's like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.”
― Kafka on the Shore
― Kafka on the Shore
“A picture postcard is a symptom of loneliness.”
― Our Man in Havana
― Our Man in Havana
“There's a proverb, a maxim, that runs, 'The dead man is dead; let's give a hand to the living.' Now, you say that to a man from the North, and he visualizes the scene of an accident with one dead and one injured man; it's reasonable to let the dead man be and to set about saving the injured man. But a Sicilian visualizes a murdered man and his murderer, and the living man who's to be helped is the murderer.”
― To Each His Own
― To Each His Own
“The only institution in the Sicilian conscience that really counts is the family; counts, that is to say, more as a dramatic juridical contract or bond than as a natural association based on affection. The family is the Sicilians’ State. The State, as it is for us, is extraneous to them, merely a de facto entity based on force; an entity imposing taxes, military service, war, police. Within the family institution the Sicilian can cross the frontier of his own natural tragic solitude and fit into a communal life where relationships are governed by hair-splitting contractual ties. To ask him to cross the frontier between family and State would be too much. In imagination he may be carried away by the idea of the State and may even rise to being Prime Minister; but the precise and definite code of his rights and duties will remain within the family, whence the step towards victorious solitude is shorter.”
― The Day of the Owl
― The Day of the Owl
2015 Reading Challenge [Closed]
— 2224 members
— last activity Apr 16, 2023 10:38AM
Our challenge is based of the Popsugar's Reading Challenge for 2015. Each week, the members read the book of their choice in the right category. This ...more
Pulp Fiction
— 1948 members
— last activity 1 hour, 15 min ago
Hard Boiled detective novels, noir, and great crime novels (old and new)
John’s 2025 Year in Books
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