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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| 823175c | Food for her is not food, it is terror, dignity, gratitude, vengeance, joyfulness, humiliation, religion, history, and, of course, love. As if the fruit she always offered us were picked from the destroyed brances of out family tree. | food insprinational life | Jonathan Safran Foer | |
| e793de2 | Animal agriculture makes a 40% greater contribution to global warming than all transportation in the world combined; it is the number one cause of climate change. | Jonathan Safran Foer | ||
| 6bb7599 | Someone needed to invent a way to be close to people without having to see them, or talk to them on the phone, or write (or read) letters, or e-mails, or texts. | Jonathan Safran Foer | ||
| c6c421d | Of course, consumers might notice that their chickens don't taste quite right -- how good could a drug-stuffed, disease-ridden, shit-contaminated animal possibly taste? -- but the birds will be injected (or otherwise pumped up) with "broths" and salty solutions to give them what we have come to think of as the chicken look, smell, and taste." | Jonathan Safran Foer | ||
| 9dc2ed3 | I trust that you have a good purpose for your ignorance | Jonathan Safran Foer | ||
| 05163ac | Only a few months into our marriage, we started marking off areas in the apartment as "Nothing Places," in which one could be assured of complete privacy, we agreed that we never would look at the marked-off zones, that they would be nonexistent territories in the apartment in which one could temporarily cease to exist, the first was in the bedroom, by the foot of the bed, we marked it off with red tape on the carpet, and it was just large .. | Jonathan Safran Foer | ||
| ec65b9a | It was raining. Gigantic ferns leaned over us. The forest drifted down a hill. I could hear a creek rushing down among the rocks. And you, you ridiculous people, you expect me to help you. | Denis Johnson | ||
| c29df9a | She knew: shit, we might as well have been drinking a dog's tears. Nothing mattered except that we were alive. | Denis Johnson | ||
| 7fb750c | But I was in a little better physical shape every day, I was getting my looks back, and my spirits were rising, and this was all in all a happy time for me. All these weirdos, and me getting a little better every day right in the midst of them. I have never known, never even imagined for a heartbeat, that there might be a place for people like us. | improving | Denis Johnson | |
| 6c20fb5 | You know there is a cycle of imagining and desire, desire and death, death and birth, birth and imagining. And we have been tempted into its mouth. And it has swallowed us. | Denis Johnson | ||
| 9d6e325 | Sooner or later the mind grasps at a thought and follows it into the labyrinth, one thought branching into another. Then the labyrinth caves in on itself and you find yourself outside. You were never inside--it was a dream. | Denis Johnson | ||
| aa77d1b | It was all right to be who he was, but others would probably think it was terrible. A couple of times in the past he'd reached this absolute zero of the truth, and without fear or bitterness he realized now that somewhere inside it there was a move he could make to change his life, to become another person, but he'd never be able to guess what it was. | revelation self | Denis Johnson | |
| 3ff0ab6 | Completely confused as to who the real criminals were in this case, the jury had voted to wash their hands of everybody and they let him off. That had been the meaning of the conversation I'd had with him that afternoon, but I hadn't understood what was happening at all. There were many moments in the Vine like that one--where you might think today was yesterday, and yesterday was tomorrow, and so on. Because we all believed we were tragic,.. | Denis Johnson | ||
| 223a8ad | Now he slept soundly through the nights, and often he dreamed of trains, and often of one particular train: He was on it; he could smell the coal smoke; a world went by. And then he was standing in that world as the sound of the train died away. A frail familiarity in these scenes hinted to him that they came from his childhood. Sometimes he woke to hear the sound of the Spokane International fading up the valley and realized he'd been hear.. | dreams trains | Denis Johnson | |
| 058f4c9 | Harold's Bow and Food Bowl bowl bowl bowl Food food food food The miracle of the heavenly restaurant I mouth this great dark sad evening Suddenly they come for me in a limousine How could I have believed I was vanquished I never lay slain I am the victor this parade is for me Now they have led me to the doors of God Long ago and forever I was in this place on the other side of eating where I am full and the empty | grief poetry unleashed | Denis Johnson | |
| 2520da4 | Well, it's very much for each person to experience alone," he said, and whatever truth he meant to get at, his eyes were the visible scars of it." | Denis Johnson | ||
| 0b5a473 | Night again, the insects are loud, the moths are killing themselves on the lamp. Two hours ago I sat on the veranda looking out at the dusk, filled with envy for each living entity--bird, bug, blossom, reptile, tree, and vine--that doesn't bear the burden of the knowledge of good and evil. The abyss is full of reality, the abyss experiences itself, the abyss is alive | Denis Johnson | ||
| 46f5285 | Her zealous hope of Heaven made it hell there. | Denis Johnson | ||
| 9a7ed78 | Sloth kept him in bed awhile. Restlessness drove him downstairs to the tiny court behind his kitchen, where the sun made more mist. Under its warmth everything gave off ghosts. They work from the bricks, rose with a deep reluctance, disappeared. | Denis Johnson | ||
| d1185c5 | The Americans won't win. They're not fighting for their homeland. They just want to be good. In order to be good, they just have to fight awhile and then leave. | vietnam-war | Denis Johnson | |
| 357bd6b | It's the essence of a degenerating mind periodically, to lose all sense of continuous self, and therefore any regard for what others think of your lack of continuity. | self-centeredness | Ian McEwan | |
| 32cde2c | I've heard it argued that long ago pain begat consciousness...Adversity forced awareness on us, and it works, it bites us when we go too near the fire, when we love too hard. Those felt sensations are the beginning of the invention of the self...God said, Let there be pain. And there was poetry. Eventually. | pain | Ian McEwan | |
| 0d6694a | As we walked back to the car, Johnny said, "A tree's one thing, but it's a big deal when you point a gun at someone. Basically, you're giving them permission to kill you." | Ian McEwan | ||
| 66ea7df | Only when you are grown up, perhaps only when you have children yourself, do you fully understand that your own parents had a full and intricate existence before you were born. | parents | Ian McEwan | |
| b786c9e | This is the pre-verbal language that linguists call Mentalese. Hardly a language, more a matrix of shifting patterns, consolidating and compressing meaning in fractions of a second, and blending it inseparably with its distinctive emotional hue. ... So that when a flash of red streaks in across his left peripheral vision ... it already has the quality of an idea ... unexpected and dangerous, but entirely his, and not of the world beyond him.. | Ian McEwan | ||
| 56ffe77 | It's at moments like these in a game that the essentials of his character are exposed: narrow, ineffectual, stupid--and morally so. The game becomes an extended metaphor of character defect. Every error he makes is so profoundly, so irritatingly typical of himself, instantly familiar, like a signature, like a tissue scar or some deformation in a private place. | Ian McEwan | ||
| 35cf8ec | since coming home, her life had stood still and a fine day like this made her impatient, almost desperate. | Ian McEwan | ||
| b827956 | She lit up as she descended the stairs to the hall, knowing that she would not have dared had her father been at home. He had precise ideas about where a woman should be seen smoking: not in the street, or any public place, not on entering a room, not standing up, and only when offered, never from her own supply - notions as self evident to him as natural justice. Three years among the sophisticates of Girton had not provided her with coura.. | Ian McEwan | ||
| dcd902d | They believed that if a mouse found your hair clippings and built a nest with them you got a headache. If the nest was big enough, you might go mad. | Jeanette Winterson | ||
| 1cb6725 | I argue that it is not Woolf's remoteness that puts people off but her nearness that terrifies them. Her language is not a woolly blanket it is a sharp sword. , which is the most difficult of her works, is a strong-honed edge through the cloudiness most of us call life. It is uncomfortable to have the thick padded stuff ripped away. There is no warm blanket to be had out of Virginia Woolf; there is wind and sun and you naked. It is not rem.. | virginia-woolf writing | Jeanette Winterson | |
| 2eea27e | There is a story, for instance, that has very much the ring of truth about it. It goes like this: One of the older officials, a good and peaceful man, was dealing with a difficult matter for the court which had become very confused, especially thanks to the contributions from the lawyers. He had been studying it for a day and a night without a break -- as these officials are indeed hard working, no-one works as hard as they do. When it was .. | Franz Kafka | ||
| eacb4bd | He advertido, de pronto, que en realidad no recuerdo su rostro en detalle. Solo creo ver aun su figura, su vestido, mientras usted se alejaba entre las mesas del cafe. | Franz Kafka | ||
| 65cab45 | bazen karsilikli iki kapisi olan bir odamiz varmis gibi geliyor; ikimiz de kendi kapimizin kolunu tutuyoruz, birimiz gozunu kirpsa, digerimiz kendi kapisinin ardina kaciveriyor ve ilki tek bir soz soylemeye kalksa ikincisi kesinlikle coktan kapiyi arkasindan kilitlemis ve gozden kaybolmus oluyor. kapiyi tekrar acacak, cunku bu belkide insanin terk edemedigi bir oda. ilki ikincisine bu kadar benzemese, sakin olsa, otekine bakmiyormus gibi .. | Franz Kafka | ||
| 0f283b5 | And I could never understand why you were insensitive to the sorrow and shame you inflicted on me with your words and judgements - it was as if you didn't sense your own power. And I certainly made you ill with words; but I knew what I was doing, though it hurt me, but I couldn't control myself, I couldn't hold back my words - though I regretted them. But you landed blows with your words and you were clueless - you never pitied anybody, n.. | Franz Kafka | ||
| dd5a5bd | Du kannst jemanden, der die Augen verbunden hat, noch so sehr aufmuntern, durch das Tuch zu starren, er wird doch niemals etwas sehen; erst wenn man ihm das Tuch abnimmt, kann er sehen. | Franz Kafka | ||
| c8aca2f | Yetkin, ama aci veren bir buyu ile buradasiniz! Benim burada oldugum gibi, daha da elle tutulur bicimde; ben neredeysem siz de oradasiniz, benim oldugum kadar, daha da belirli. | letters letters-to-milena love milena | Franz Kafka | |
| f2ad812 | Above all, the free man is superior to the man who has to serve another. | Franz Kafka | ||
| 219da50 | If you have food in your jaws you have solved all questions for the time being. | jaws questions solved time | Franz Kafka | |
| 9575d10 | I did not fall heavily, nor did I feel any pain, but I felt so weak and unhappy that I buried my face in the ground: I could not bear the strain of seeing around me the things of the earth. I felt convinced that every movement and every thought was forced, and that one had to be one's guard against them. Yet nothing seemed more natural than to lie here on the grass, my arms beside my body, my face hidden. | Franz Kafka | ||
| c233642 | You are so vulnerably haunting; Your eeriness is terrifyingly irresistible. | haunting letters | Franz Kafka | |
| 786b6a5 | He speaks to Klamm, but is it Klamm? Isn't it rather someone who merely resembles Klamm? Perhaps at the very most a secretary who is a little like Klamm and goes to great lengths to be even more like him and tries to seem important by affecting Klamm's drowsy, dreamlike manner. That part of his being is easiest to imitate, many try to do so; as for the rest of his being, though, they wisely steer clear of it. And a man such as Klamm, who is.. | Franz Kafka | ||
| 8eb6531 | Was he an animal if music could captivate him so? | Franz Kafka | ||
| dd462d8 | Si cada uno de los instantes de nuestra vida se va a repetir infinitas veces, estamos clavados a la eternidad como Jesucristo a la cruz. La imagen es terrible. En el mundo del eterno retorno descansa sobre cada gesto el peso de una insoportable responsabilidad. Ese es el motivo por el cual Nietzsche llamo a la idea del eterno retorno la carga mas pesada. Pero si el eterno retorno es la carga mas pesada, entonces nuestras vidas pueden aparec.. | Milan Kundera | ||
| 1a067dd | knt fkr@ 'nh `jz `n f`l sh~ tGrqh f~ Hl@ mn ldhhwl wthd~ mn rw`h f~ an wHd. | Milan Kundera |