- "It was as though I could have heard even wind and church bells if only I had been more attentive." - Walter Benjamin, Berlin Childhood around 1900
- "The two preceding years had been spent in Europe with a private tutor, who persuaded him that Harvard was the thing; it would “open doors,” it would be a tremendous tonic, it would give him innumerable self-sacrificing and devoted friends. So he went to Harvard—there was no other logical thing to be done with him." - F Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned
- “To rebel against being born a woman seemed as foolish to her as to take pride in it.” - Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
- "It was all, moreover, in the name of "love"; everyone involved placed a magical faith in th efficacy of the very word. There was the significance that Lucille Miller saw in Arthwell's saying that he "loved" her, that he did not "love" Elaine." - Joan Didion, "Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream," Slouching Towards Bethlehem
- "And, when you want something, all the universe conspires to help you achieve it." - Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
- "It was her habit to build up laughter out of inadequate materials." - John Steinbeck, Grapes of Wrath
- “You have your wonderful memories," people said later, as if memories were solace. Memories are not. Memories are by definition of times past, things gone. Memories are the Westlake uniforms in the closet, the faded and cracked photographs, the invitations to the weddings of the people who are no longer married, the mass cards from the funerals of the people whose faces you no longer remember. Memories are what you no longer want to remember.” - Joan Didion, Blue Nights
- “Anyone whose goal is 'something higher' must expect someday to suffer vertigo. What is vertigo? Fear of falling? No, Vertigo is something other than fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves.” - Milan Kundera, the Unbearable Lightness of Being
- “The goals we pursue are always veiled. A girl who longs for marriage longs for something she knows nothing about. The boy who hankers after fame has no idea what fame is. The thing that gives our every move its meaning is always totally unknown to us.” - Milan Kundera, the Unbearable Lightness of Being
- “A man with a beard was always a little suspect anyway. You couldn't say you wore a beard because you liked a beard. People didn't like you for telling the truth. You had to say you had a scar so you couldn't shave.” - John Steinbeck, Cannery Row
- “...the air so still it aches like the place where the tooth was on the morning after you’ve been to the dentist or aches like your heart in the bosom when you stand on the street corner waiting for the light to change and happen to recollect how things once were and how they might have been yet if what happened had not happened.” - Robert Penn Warren, All the King's Men
- "For whatever you live is life." - Robert Penn Warren, All the King's Men
- “When it's raining like this," said Naoko, "it feels as if we're the only ones in the world. I wish it would just keep raining so the three of us could stay together.” - Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood
- "Death exists, not as the opposite but as a part of life. Translate into words, it's a cliche, but at the time I felt it not as words but as that knot of air inside me. Death exists - in a paperweight, in four red and white balls on a billiard table - and we go on living and breathing it into our lungs like fine dust." - Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood
jul 14 2013 ∞
apr 22 2014 +
apr 22 2014 +