Chris

“She was decidedly attractive, he saw, but in an ill-natured, ungracious way. Because of his connection with Fitzgerald, Carstairs & Scott, Johnnie had an extensive knowledge of the external appearance and different modes of behavior of a great variety of attractive women: they came up to the office in shoals, with their nails dipped in blood and their faces covered with pale cocoa. And some were charming and simple beneath their masks, and some were complex and arrogant. This girl belonged to the latter type, the type which would ignore or stare surlily at him if he spoke to them, until they learned that the actual money came through him, when their manner sweetened wonderfully. This girl wore her attractiveness not as a girl should, simply, consciously, as a happy crown of pleasure, but rather as a murderous utensil with which she might wound indiscriminately right and left, and which she would only employ to please when it suited her purpose. They were like bad-tempered street-walkers, without walking the street.”
― Patrick Hamilton, Hangover Square

“Oh. To be filled with goodness then shattered by goodness, so beautifully mosaically fragmented by such shocking goodness.”
― Ali Smith, The Accidental

“Not having anything around to read is dangerous: you have to content yourself with life itself, and that can lead you to take risks.”
― Michel Houellebecq, Platform

“I believe in justice, I want redress for all wrongs done, I want the good life-if such a thing exists-accessible to all. Yet, emotionally, I would be only too happy to become world dictator, if only to fulfill my mission: the destruction of the last vestigial traces of traditional manhood in the race to realign the sexes, thus reducing population, while increasing human happiness and preparing humanity for its next stage.”
― Gore Vidal, Myra Breckinridge