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94a5f06 First you do everything possible to make sure your world is antibourgeois, that it defies bourgeois tastes, that it mystifies the mob, the public, that it outdistances the insensible middle-class multitudes by light-years of subtlety and intellect--and then, having succeeded admirably, you ask with a sense of See-what-I-mean? outrage: look, they don't even buy our products! (Usually referred to as "quality art.")" Tom Wolfe
47837ee Vulgar, but not as vulgar as Louis Vuitton, thought Sherman. designer fashion louis-vuitton Tom Wolfe
9749c8d I make out a schoolbus...glowing orange, green, magenta, lavender, chlorine blue, every fluorescent pastel imaginable in thousands of designs, both large and small, like a cross between Fernand Liger and Dr. Strange, roaring together and vibrating off each other as if somebody had given Hieronymous Bosch fifty buckets of day-glo paint and a 1939 International Harvester schoolbus and told him to go to it. Tom Wolfe
4a19e09 Everything in everybody's life is ... significant. And everybody is alert, watching for the meanings. And the vibrations. Tom Wolfe
25118ee Youre tale anoyeth al this compaignye. Swich talkyng is nat worth a boterflye, Geoffrey Chaucer
97d4346 But we weren't meant to live alone,' said Frank. 'Life makes its own corrections. Penelope Fitzgerald
5f3cfa8 Tilda cared nothing for the future, and had, as a result, a great capacity for happiness. Penelope Fitzgerald
d4d2a4d Florence had noticed one or two eccentricities in herself lately, which might be the result of hard work, or of age, or of living alone. When the letters came, for example, she often found herself wasting time in looking at the postmarks and wondering whoever they could be from, instead of opening them in a sensible manner and finding out at once. Penelope Fitzgerald
3c4981a There's two ways to be selfish. You can think too much about yourself, or you can think too little about others. You're selfish both ways. Penelope Fitzgerald
11eea94 You understand it's not a matter of strategy. I'm not talking about secrets or deceptions. I'm talking about being yourself. If you reveal everything, bare every feeling, ask for understanding, you lose something crucial to your sense of yourself. You need to know things the others don't know. It's what no one knows about you that allows you to know yourself. Don DeLillo
aa53c44 God made big people. And God made little people. But Colt made the .45 to even things up. Don DeLillo
83fbbb1 No body knows how to feel and they're checking around for hints. Don DeLillo
921f569 Civilization did not rise and flourish as men hammered out hunting scenes on bronze gates and whispered philosophy under the stars, with garbage as a noisome offshoot, swept away and forgotten. No, garbage rose first, inciting people to build a civilization in response, in self-defense. We had to find ways to discard our waste, to use what we couldn't discard, to reprocess what we couldn't use. Garbage pushed back. Don DeLillo
410a140 There comes a moment in every life when you must let go with your hands--with both hands. John Irving
9f80aad We are beasts and this is our consolation. Joyce Carol Oates
e45ac9e None of the rest of my life figures here. Joyce Carol Oates
322a9e5 The person you love best, you share the world with. When that person's gone the world remains but it isn't the same thing, it's at a distance. Joyce Carol Oates
255c9e5 At least," Mother said, "that's the story Aunt Esther tells." "What do you mean?" I asked. "Isn't it true?" "Stories are never 'true'," Mother said. "But they may, almost by accident, contain 'truth'. Sometimes." Joyce Carol Oates
57a07a0 while madness in individuals is relatively rare, it is virtually a prerequisite for a certain sort of political leader. Joyce Carol Oates
8665084 Maggots in corpses. He'd seen. Whitely churning, in the mouths of dead soldiers, where their noses had been, their ears and blasted-away jaws. Most of the soldiers had been men as young as he himself had been. Italians fallen after the Austrian offensive of 1918. You do not forget such sights. You do not un-see such sights. He himself had been wounded, but he had not died. The distinction was profound. Between what lived and what died the d.. Joyce Carol Oates
32ee4f8 Dorie herself was not very surprised, because a daydreamer is prepared for most things and in a way she had planned even this, though she had not guessed how it would come about. Joyce Carol Oates
cb98b94 the music was always in the background, like music at a church service; it was something to depend upon. Joyce Carol Oates
8701254 l ymknny ltwrT m` rjl l yhmh 'mry w'mr Tflty wHytn m`an, 'kthr mn htmmh bGryb ... l ymknny ltwrT m` rjl l yhmh n `sh 'w mt! yrmy bHyth mthl lzhr wk'n l qym@ lh Joyce Carol Oates
dc79703 Because we are linked by blood and blood is memory without language. Joyce Carol Oates
0278b5e I am made to think, not for the first time, that in my writing I have plunged ahead-head-on, heedlessly one might say-or 'fearlessly'- into my own future: this time of utter raw anguished loss. Though I may have had, since adolescence, a kind of intellectual/literary precocity, I had not experienced much;nor would I experience much until I was well into middle age-the illnesses and deaths of my parents, this unexpected death of my husband. .. shock Joyce Carol Oates
8bef7d2 Why doesn't momma come back? Cynthia Voigt
dd112e6 Writing for me is the hardest thing in the world, but also a thing which, once completed, is the most satisfying. ... I am no prodigy but, Fate willing, I think I can produce art. William Styron
f19d400 Is it really sick for me to be happy right now?" I asked. My voice broke twice. He didn't push me away. He pulled me tight against his ice-hard chest, so tight it was hard to breathe, even with my lungs securely intact. "I know exactly what you mean," he whispered. "But we have lot of reasons to be happy. For one, we're alive." "Yes," I agreed. "That's a good one." "And together," he breathed. His breath was so sweet it made my head swim." Stephenie Meyer
e63f6e5 Jacob's little smirk became a full-blown grin, and I knew he was picturing Charlie showing up to arrest him. This grin was too bitter, too full of mocking to satisfy me. This wasn't the smile I'd been waiting to see. Stephenie Meyer
80dba52 I could have argued that her wanting to do something for me meant she was ultimately acting in her own interests, but it might provoke more of the 'don't fuck with me' behaviour. Graeme Simsion
c69c732 Sex was absolutely not allowed to be scheduled, at least not by explicit discussion, but I had become familiar with the sequence of events likely to precipitate it: a blueberry muffin from Blue Sky Bakery, a triple shot of espresso from Otha's, removal of my shirt, and my impersonation of Gregory Peck in the role of Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. Graeme Simsion
db411c0 Research has shown that creativity is enhanced when performing straightforward mechanical tasks such as jogging, cooking and driving. Unobstructed thinking time is always useful. Graeme Simsion
3b7e1d7 Amazing. She retains a professor of genetics, an alien of extraordinary abilities, to help find her father, she travels for a week, spending almost every minute of the waking day with him, yet when she wants the answer to a question on genetics, she goes to the Internet. Graeme Simsion
6b9b088 The young man is currently standing in the hallway, dripping on the handmade silk rug that the Emperor of the Indies presented to His Majesty's grandmother. He is insisting on speaking with His Majesty." "It's a very ugly rug," Mendanbar said. "That's why we put it in the entry hall." -- humor king mendanbar rug Patricia C. Wrede
feb9adf Sex, a switchblade, and motorcycle lessons. You really are making sure my night ends on a high note. humor Kelley Armstrong
5c37116 Nuh-uh. No deals with the devil. I've learned my lesson on that one. ~Jaime Vegas Kelley Armstrong
240231d I'd say I needed to find myself, if that didn't sound like I was heading into the Himalayas, taking only a backpack stuffed with angst and clean underwear. backpacking funny lost-identity olivia Kelley Armstrong
13ba871 That's trouble. The pixies will sour your milk." "I thought it was hobgoblins who soured milk." "A dirty lie. Spread by the pixies, no doubt." humor olivia patrick pixies Kelley Armstrong
fc2f3bc In the end, like any stray, I was conquered by the promise of continued food and shelter. Trust would take longer. Kelley Armstrong
2dce991 Even when I encountered racism outside Salmon Creek, it usually rolled off me. The worst of it often came from rednecks whipping past in rusted pickups. I looked at them and I looked at me-class leader, track star, straight-A student- and their slurs about dirty Indians and drunk Indians and dumb Indians were laughable. Mom says crap like that comes from people who've accomplished so little in lifethat they feel the need to lift themselves .. Kelley Armstrong
bad8d99 It's so easy to screw up. To make a choice that seems right. Then time passes and you look back and you say, 'How the hell did I do that?' Attitudes change. Insights change. Eventually things you were so damned sure were right become...incomprehensible. Kelley Armstrong
4c07db1 The secretary moved in to block Simon as I followed Thierry into the office. As the door closed, I heard her whisper, "I think it's very sweet, you sticking up for your brother like that." "I'm not trying to be sweet," Simon said, raising his voice so Thierry could hear. "I'm trying to be fair. But apparently no one's interested in that." Kelley Armstrong
d6d9609 When the plague struck Chicago, the townspeople here erected the gargoyles, and nary a soul was lost to the Black Death." "The bubonic plague predates Chicago by about five hundred years." He lowered himself to the bench. "I know. I was very disappointed when I found out. Almost as bad as when I learned there were no fairies. The world is much more interesting with goblins and plagues." "Unless you catch the plague." gabriel gargoyles magic-and-mystery olivia plague Kelley Armstrong
57d1bb6 Archangel or hound from hell . . . with Gabriel, it depends on the day. Kelley Armstrong