Notable quotes, excerpts, and profound lines.

[kennyc]

"Oh, what can you do with a man like that? What can you do? How can you dissuade his eyes in a crowd from seeking out the cheek with acne, the infirm hand; how can you teach him to respond to the inestimable greatness of the race, the harsh surface beauty of life; how can you put his finger for him on the obdurate truths before which fear and horror are powerless? The sea that morning was iridescent and dark. My wife and my sister were swimming — Diana and Helen — and I saw their uncovered heads, black and gold in the dark water. I saw them come out and I saw that they were naked, unshy, beautiful and full of grace, and I watched the naked women walk out of the sea."

- John Cheever - "Goodbye, my Brother"

[covingtoncat73]

Lovely Cheever quotes, Kenny.

“All things passed away. Even the earth itself, the sky and the river and the stars he loved, would, one day, come to the end of their existence. But it was not a thing to be feared; such was the bittersweet beauty of life.”


― Justin Cronin, The City of Mirrors

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by covingtoncat73

...

“All things passed away. Even the earth itself, the sky and the river and the stars he loved, would, one day, come to the end of their existence. But it was not a thing to be feared; such was the bittersweet beauty of life. He”


― Justin Cronin, The City of Mirrors

[covingtoncat73]

"There was, Alicia realized, a single hour that all the days since your birth pointed you toward. What you thought was a maze of choices, all the possibilities of what your life might become, was, in fact, a series of steps you took along a road, and when you reached your destination and looked back, only one path—the one chosen for you—was visible."

"Behind every great hatred is a love story."

"I died and then was brought to life, the oldest tale there is."

~Justin Cronin, City of Mirrors

[WT Sharpe]

Her indulgent tenderness, the frankness of her temper, and my innate rising curiosity, soon removed all distance between us: like friends of an equal age, we freely conversed on every topic, familiar or abstruse; and it was her delight and reward to observe the first shoots of my young ideas. Pain and languor were often soothed by the voice of instruction and amusement; and to her kind lessons I ascribe my early early and invincible love of reading, which I would not exchange for the treasures of India.
— Edward Gibbon (8 May 1737 – 16 January 1794); English historian. My Life and Writings. Said of his aunt, Mrs. Catherine Porten, who had a great deal of influence on him after the death of his mother when he was only 10 years old.

[covingtoncat73]

"Eustace remembered a day like this one: spring on the cusp of summer, the earth unclenching its fist, thick green leaves, rich with fragrance, fattening the trees."

Justin Cronin, The City of Mirrors

[AlexBell]

'The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much.'

'We live, as we dream - alone.'

'A belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.'

'Life, for most of us, is not so much a hard as an exacting taskmaster.'

Joseph Conrad

[issybird]

From The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondō:

...it seems to me that people have far more unread books than they once did, ranging from three to more than forty.

and:

It is not uncommon for people to purchase a book and then buy another one not long after, before they have read the first one.

I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked!

[bfisher]

Originally Posted by issybird

From The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondō:



and:



I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked!

The horror! The horror!

[kennyc]

"We live in the richest country in the world. There's plenty and to spare for no man, woman, or child to be in want. And in addition to this our country was founded on what should have been a great, true principle - the freedom, equality, and rights of each individual. Huh! And what has come of that start? There are corporations worth billions of dollars - and hundreds of thousands of people who don't get to eat."
- Carson McCullers, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (first published on this date 6/4/1940)

[covingtoncat73]

Originally Posted by issybird

From The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing
I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked!

Originally Posted by bfisher

The horror! The horror!

OMG! Books are not clutter! Some of the book I own but haven't read are 19th century books in German that belonged to my Swiss ancestors. I am simply unable to read them but wouldn't give them up and I am a pretty neat, clutter-phobic person.

Originally Posted by kennyc

"We live in the richest country in the world. There's plenty and to spare for no man, woman, or child to be in want. And in addition to this our country was founded on what should have been a great, true principle - the freedom, equality, and rights of each individual. Huh! And what has come of that start? There are corporations worth billions of dollars - and hundreds of thousands of people who don't get to eat."
- Carson McCullers, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (first published on this date 6/4/1940)

Good one, Kenny.

[BenG]

"Later, as he sat on his balcony eating the dog, Dr Robert Laing reflected on the unusual events that had taken place within this huge apartment building during the previous three months."

― Opening sentence of 'High-Rise' by J. G. Ballard

[John F]

"... I quietly quaffed my cognac, discreetly admiring Lana’s legs. Longer than the Bible and a hell of a lot more fun, they stretched forever, like an Indian yogi or an American highway shimmering through the Great Plains or the southwestern desert. Her legs demanded to be looked at and would not take no, non, nein, nyet, or even maybe for an answer. "

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by John F

"... I quietly quaffed my cognac, discreetly admiring Lana’s legs. Longer than the Bible and a hell of a lot more fun, they stretched forever, like an Indian yogi or an American highway shimmering through the Great Plains or the southwestern desert. Her legs demanded to be looked at and would not take no, non, nein, nyet, or even maybe for an answer. "

The Synpathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

It sounds like they're made out of rubber....or cement!

[BenG]

Anybody who "paints a picture" of some coming year is kidding – he's only fancying up something in the present or past, not blueprinting the future. All such writing is essentially satiric (today-centered), not utopic (tomorrow-centered). This book, then, is a rather bilious rib on 1950 – on what 1950 might have been like if it had been allowed to fulfill itself, if it had gone on being 1950, only more and more so, for four more decades. But no year ever fulfills itself: The cowpath of History is littered with the corpses of years, their throats slit from ear to ear by the improbable.

Limbo by Bernard Wolfe, from the Author's Notes And Warnings at the end.