Pariap’s Reviews > These Violent Delights > Status Update

Sick. Sick. Sick.

“They don’t see it, you’re the most brilliant person I’ve ever met and they don’t even notice, they should be . . .” His own stammering sincerity frightened him, but he forced himself to keep speaking. He had to give Julian something of himself that wasn’t needy and grasping, something that burned itself alive to exalt him.”

“-he survived parties full of strangers by being invisible, and he excelled at it.”

“…men like this, whose hands were steady even when they were drunk and who knew how to hit their wives and children without leaving a mark.”

“Those people don’t care about anything except reinforcing their own fucking normalcy by making you reflect it back at them—”

“I don’t understand why you haven’t tried it yet,” Julian said carelessly. He glanced at Paul’s mouth, so fleetingly that he might have imagined it. “I wouldn’t stop you, if that’s what you’re worried about. You could do anything to me and I’d let you.”
[…]
“It feels like it would be disrespectful.”
“I don’t need you to treat me respectfully. I’m not made of glass.”

“If I have to deal with one more person today, I’ll fucking kill myself.”
[…]
he said, very quietly, “I can leave.”
“Don’t be dumb,” said Julian, “you don’t count.”

“Arendt is mandatory,” said Julian.
[…]
She gets at why behavioral norms can’t function as a conscience—the purpose of social norms is to norm, not to attain moral perfection”