Quotables

"How little we make of what we know of anyone, how little we employ it."

Wed, 08 May 2013 16:59:15 -0400

“How little we make of what we know of anyone, how little we employ it.”

- -Edna O’Brien, Night

"So Corde slept a great deal, but not well. The restless ecstasy was what he had."

Thu, 02 May 2013 11:40:31 -0400

“So Corde slept a great deal, but not well. The restless ecstasy was what he had.”

- -Saul Bellow, The Dean’s December

"…she had not the faintest notion of the mysteries of harmony…"

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 09:31:36 -0400

“…she had not the faintest notion of the mysteries of harmony…”

- -Vladimir Nabokov, Despair

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Wed, 17 Apr 2013 09:30:03 -0400

"There is no reentry from the orbit of transcendence."

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 10:10:47 -0400

“There is no reentry from the orbit of transcendence.”

- -Walker Percy, The Last Gentleman

"That ‘writers write’ is meant to be self-evident. People like to say it. I find it is hardly ever..."

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 10:46:26 -0400

“That ‘writers write’ is meant to be self-evident. People like to say it. I find it is hardly ever true. Writers drink. Writers rant. Writers phone. Writers sleep. I have met very few writers who write at all.”

- -Renata Adler, Speedboat

"Forbidden are words about flowers. Forbidden is spring. In general, all the good words are faint..."

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 09:37:20 -0400

“Forbidden are words about flowers. Forbidden is spring. In general, all the good words are faint with exhaustion.”

- -Viktor Shklovsky, ZOO, or Letters Not About Love

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Wed, 20 Mar 2013 09:29:26 -0400

"In these prayers the child Charlotte routinely asked that “it” turn out all right,..."

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 09:58:17 -0400

“In these prayers the child Charlotte routinely asked that “it” turn out all right, “it” being unspecified and all-inclusive, and she had been an adult for some years before the possibility occurred to her that “it” might not.”

- -Joan Didion, A Book of Common Prayer

"I drank soda water and smoked and fretted, until light began to break and the rustle of a rising..."

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 16:52:54 -0500

“I drank soda water and smoked and fretted, until light began to break and the rustle of a rising breeze turned me back to my bed.”

- -Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited

"How idiotic. Childishly idiotic. A moment’s impression. An old weakness. A matter of..."

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 09:33:47 -0500

“How idiotic. Childishly idiotic. A moment’s impression. An old weakness. A matter of temperament.”

- -Patrick Süskind, Perfume

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Wed, 20 Feb 2013 09:43:33 -0500

"I drifted into the street lit with love and began turning imaginary handsprings."

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 09:38:44 -0500

“I drifted into the street lit with love and began turning imaginary handsprings.”

- -Elaine Dundy, The Dud Avocado

"The cat house of a zoo has an ornery smell, an air prowled by sleep, mangy with old breath and dead..."

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 11:11:39 -0500

“The cat house of a zoo has an ornery smell, an air prowled by sleep, mangy with old breath and dead desires.”

- -Truman Capote, Summer Crossing

"His job wasn’t temporary and things weren’t going to get any better–not that they were going to get..."

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 18:35:00 -0500

“His job wasn’t temporary and things weren’t going to get any better–not that they were going to get any worse, barring some unforeseen catastrophe like atomic warfare or mental illness, but they weren’t going to get any better.”

- -L.J. Davis, A Meaningful Life (with an introduction by Jonathan Lethem)

(If it’s any consolation, LJ Davis’s hero does try to improve his lot in life. Now, whether it comes to anything is something you’ll have to read the book to find out.)

via Sasha and the Silverfish

(via nyrbclassics)

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Wed, 23 Jan 2013 10:04:43 -0500

"For all this gaiety of color, the gloom was very deep."

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 10:04:33 -0500

“For all this gaiety of color, the gloom was very deep.”

- -Saul Bellow, The Dean’s December

"The great hand opened and shut."

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 10:00:14 -0500

“The great hand opened and shut.”

- -Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

"There is so little and so fucking much. Half a lifetime. Felt, seen, heard, not fully felt, most..."

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 11:11:03 -0500

“There is so little and so fucking much. Half a lifetime. Felt, seen, heard, not fully felt, most meagerly seen, scarcely heard at all, and still in me, rattling, like a receding footfall, or Count Dracula’s swagger.”

- -Edna O’Brien, Night

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Wed, 19 Dec 2012 09:39:24 -0500