Necessary Errors Quotes

“In Rome the statues, in Paris the paintings, and in Prague the buildings suggest that pleasure can be an education.”
― Caleb Crain, Necessary Errors

“Jacob thought about going home. He still had some American change, which he kept in an empty matchbox in his sock drawer, and one night, after he had finished his pancakes and jam, he took the coins out, spread them on the kitchen table, and admired the burnt sienna patina of one of the pennies, which in the candlelight was iridescent with violet and green where people’s touch had salted it. The portrait of Lincoln was ugly and noble, and Jacob took off his glasses to look more closely. On the other side, an erratic line of shrubbery was engraved beside the Lincoln monument’s steps. The idealism seemed to be in Lincoln rather than in the coin’s design, which was homely. It was so homely, in fact, that there was a kind of democratic grandeur to it. It was the most beautiful currency in the world. Jacob was on the verge of tears.”
― Caleb Crain, Necessary Errors

“Later, holding Milo’s hand in the dark, Jacob felt that it was only in recovering it that he learned what he had been in danger of losing. The touch of Milo’s hand seemed to remind him of parts of himself that he had already begun to forget about.”
― Caleb Crain, Necessary Errors

“They sat talking naked so often and so long perhaps because they liked to be able to read the whole opalescent page of each other at once.”
― Caleb Crain, Necessary Errors

“They came for the freedom, they stayed for the McNuggets.”
― Caleb Crain, Necessary Errors

“Like capitalism,” Carl suggested. “‘We’ll give you so much pleasure, you’ll never want to try another socioeconomic system.”
― Caleb Crain, Necessary Errors

“Unable to see, they were briefly seized by the characteristic Prague anxiety of never finding the entrance--of arriving at one's goal but remaining blocked from it by a wall or a stone on account of having overlooked an alley or medieval door a few dozen yards back, which has served as the approach so immemorially that no one any longer marked or described it.”
― Caleb Crain, Necessary Errors

“Jacob opened the refrigerator and stared into it vacantly, with the false purposefulness that lingers for a few moments when a person of a solitary nature is released from the company of a strong personality.”
― Caleb Crain, Necessary Errors

“– I’m going to be a writer, he reminded Milo.
– And you won’t need literature?
– I’ll write my own.”
― Caleb Crain, Necessary Errors

“Everyday life continues during a love affair.”
― Caleb Crain, Necessary Errors

“It was strange that one couldn’t know in advance which places one was later going to wish to remember.”
― Caleb Crain, Necessary Errors

“It is perhaps necessary for something dear to be lost.”
“Why?”
“Perhaps it is necessary to the making of a story. A story after all is a way of remembering love.”
― Caleb Crain, Necessary Errors

“They’re very keen on disillusioning young women at British universities, you know, I suppose to make us resigned and grateful later on.”
― Caleb Crain, Necessary Errors

“The odd thing was that he had hated to be part of any group in America. Maybe he had never been in a group large enough – a group so large that he could approach vanishing in it, which was a kind of freedom – or maybe he had never been in a group devoted to freedom itself.”
― Caleb Crain, Necessary Errors

“They’re ruining the city, aren’t they,” remarked Rafe. “The backpackers.”
― Caleb Crain, Necessary Errors

“There’s always a story that people are telling about themselves, and sometimes you can get them to tell it ever so slightly differently.”
― Caleb Crain, Necessary Errors

“Everyone likes to say they’re tolerant.”
― Caleb Crain, Necessary Errors

“I suppose it does come with a certain responsibility.”
“What does?” asked Annie.
“The magnificence of my person.”
“Gah.”
― Caleb Crain, Necessary Errors

“What if his ambitions was just a name he gave to a kind of conformity, and he was going back because he wasn’t brave enough to live a life that wasn’t expected of him, a life so far from any road that there wouldn’t be any signposts or milestones?”
― Caleb Crain, Necessary Errors

“It’s very strange to be completely naked in public,” said Jacob. “It isn’t something Americans ordinarily do.”
“I can’t say it’s very English, either,” replied Henry.
“It’s a Scottish thing, though, isn’t it? With all the kilts and all that.”
― Caleb Crain, Necessary Errors

“Crisis – the midwife of capitalism. The ‘advisers’ arrive and say, My god, they have no predatory class here. It is an emergency! We must create one immediately. Let us arrange to give everything to a few crooks. Then this country, too, will have a mess of parasites to rule it, to suck the value of the people’s labour.”
― Caleb Crain, Necessary Errors

“It was a mistake to think that in the new world they would be able to care in the old way. In the new world you had to find something of value and learn not to care for it. You had to learn how to sell it.”
― Caleb Crain, Necessary Errors

“He was in the flow of time now. He was in a story.”
― Caleb Crain, Necessary Errors

“The beer was cheap, the fiddling sharp, and the dancing sweaty.”
― Caleb Crain, Necessary Errors

“Would you fancy a shag?”
“Is that like a scrum?”
“It could be.”
― Caleb Crain, Necessary Errors

“But what are they?” Annie asked.
“An omphalos, probably,” said Jacob.
“A what, dear?” Melinda asked.
“A bellybutton of the world.”
“I didn’t know it had one.”
― Caleb Crain, Necessary Errors

“I just remembered. My hamster is loose.”
“Is that a thing to say to a nice girl?”
― Caleb Crain, Necessary Errors

“It’s a question of wanting to know how the story turns out. And one can only know that about one story, ever.”
― Caleb Crain, Necessary Errors

“Because the air was bright and fresh, the ground beneath them empty, and both of them young, it was possible to imagine that either of them could become anything he wanted.”
― Caleb Crain, Necessary Errors

“The worse one sins, the more of a moralist one becomes.”
― Caleb Crain, Necessary Errors