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5d59e20 Zach Palmer, who was half human and half--we weren't really sure what, including the possibility that the other half might be human as well. Ben Aaronovitch
4ef0f10 I didn't ask why anybody would want to risk the electric two-step on the tracks because, as police, all three of us knew that there wasn't anything so stupid that somebody wouldn't try it sooner or later. recklessness Ben Aaronovitch
2062fdf He asked if we were really ghost hunting, and I said we were. "What, like officially?" "Officially secret," I said because discretion is supposed to be, if not our middle name, at least a nickname we occasionally answer to when we remember." Ben Aaronovitch
d130343 Even in the 1980s your average young archaeologist would have had difficulty raising capital for a house. I knew this because it's one of the things archaeologists will tell you about, at length, at the slightest provocation. Ben Aaronovitch
0aaf9c6 I nodded absently as I made a note of the pub. The Rising Sun drinking establishment exists right on the fringes of the demi-monde - not being nearly as antique or mysterious as it pretends to be. Ben Aaronovitch
ddc7a72 When dealing with the excessively rich and privileged, you've got your two basic approaches. One is to go in hard and deliberately working class. A regional accent is always a plus in this. Seawoll has been known to deploy a Mancunian dialect so impenetrable that members of Oasis would have needed subtitles, and graduate entries with double firsts from Oxford practise a credible Estuary in the mirror and drop their glottals with gay abandon.. Ben Aaronovitch
e5b1726 The word 'bollocks' is one of the most beautiful and flexible in the English language. It can be used to express emotional states ranging from ecstatic surprise to weary resignation in the face of inevitable disaster. Ben Aaronovitch
c4771b5 I sighed and went back to my book, in which Morgoth nicked the eponymous jewels and had away with them back to Angbad. Sorry mate, I thought, not my jurisdiction. Did you have them insured? Whereupon Feanor gets a crime number and a leaflet about being on guard against theft and the wiles of the personification of evil. Ben Aaronovitch
697e615 I had found the upper limit of my courage. Fortunately for me, there is no known lower limit to human stupidity. courage recklessness Ben Aaronovitch
6c00b72 And suffering we know breeds images, it breeds the most beautiful images of all. contradictory contrasting henry-and-cato images inspiration iris-murdoch juxtaposition suffering Iris Murdoch
08976dc It kept Mom on high alert and I worried sometimes that their marriage had become the sort Inspector Javert might have had with Jean Valjean. Karen Joy Fowler
e7daf64 The men responsible were charged with grand theft. Their original defense, that dolphins are persons (humans in dolphin suits, one defendant said), was quickly thrown out by the judge. I'm unclear on the definition of person the courts have been using. Something that sieves out dolphins but lets corporations slide on through. Karen Joy Fowler
621cc30 I'm being careful with here," Harlow told me, apparently irritated by something I hadn't even had the time to say yet. She was making assumptions about my no-fun-at-all-ness. They were good assumptions." Karen Joy Fowler
eb25b88 Because what could be more Casablanca? Suddenly Harlow saw that what she'd always wanted was a man of principle. A man of action. A domestic terrorist. Every girl's dream, if she can't have a vampire. Karen Joy Fowler
e346892 The storm which blew me out of my past eased off. --FRANZ KAFKA, "A Report for an Academy" Karen Joy Fowler
110b7ea I'm unclear on the definition of person the courts have been using. Something that sieves out dolphins but lets corporations slide on through. A Karen Joy Fowler
faec308 Hathos," I offered finally and then thoughtfully provided the definition. "The pleasure you get from hating something." -- Karen Joy Fowler
144ed30 No one with real integrity tries to sell their integrity to you. People with real integrity hardly notice they have it. Karen Joy Fowler
2584a33 Antagonism in my family comes wrapped in layers of code, sideways feints, full deniability. Karen Joy Fowler
a5423af Nor did I respond with the obvious, that my brother might very well go to jail, probably would someday, but he would never ever call. Three words were scratched in ballpoint blue on the wall above the phone. Think a head. I thought how that was good advice, but maybe a bit late for anyone using that phone. I thought how it would be a good name for a beauty salon. Karen Joy Fowler
32ce203 I DIDN'T KNOW what she was thinking or feeling. Her body had become unfamiliar to me. And yet, at the very same time, I recognized everything about her. My sister, Fern. In the whole wide world, my only red poker chip. As if I were looking in a mirror. Karen Joy Fowler
ecc24c3 I am shaking it, popping it, laying it down and working it out Karen Joy Fowler
1e732ab At five of five, I called the airline number--800-FUCK-YOU--and was told I had to speak directly to lost luggage at the Sacramento Airport. No one answered in Sacramento, though my call was important to them. Karen Joy Fowler
81fa928 Sylvia's first impression of Allegra was that no one had ever before had such a beautiful baby. Jocelyn's first impression of Grigg was that he had nice eyelashes and a funny name, and didn't interest her in the slightest. Prudie's first impression of Bernadette was that she was startling to look at and dull if you listened, which you hardly ever had to do. Bernadette's first impression of Prudie was that, in all her long years, she had rar.. childbirth first-impressions joy Karen Joy Fowler
fdebf6b I wasn't happy, exactly, but I was remembering how happiness felt. karen joy fowler
d4a4aca I appreciated her vigor. I admired her choices though I wouldn't have made them. Freak or fake, I'd been asking myself ever since I arrived at college, and here was someone bold enough to be both. vigor Karen Joy Fowler
712ac4b Even now, after a lifetime of human companionship, I am hard-pressed to understand fully mankind's fascination with those little marks that they so carefully impress on sheets of paper. Sally Smith O'Rourke
9132bac Robert and I decided last night that we are going to fight this thing with every ounce of strength that we have, she declared. We will not give in to it as long as the Lord gives us breath. We will fight it minute by minute and hour by hour, Meteor. But we will never give up. Our love and faith will get us through this dark time. Sally Smith O'Rourke
36261b7 I took him for a kind of buffoon. Now I see he is a devil. devil enemy first-impression iris-murdoch the-green-knight underestimated Iris Murdoch
d1cf6e8 Give yourself to these great works of art. They suffice for a lifetime. art enduring great-works-of-art iris-murdoch lifetime the-black-prince works-of-art Iris Murdoch
b5e3676 Sometimes I feel I am crammed with demons. demons internal-struggle iris-murdoch possessed the-message-to-the-planet tormented Iris Murdoch
804a793 Idei prikhodiat v golovu otdel'nym lichnostiam. V etom vsegda byla beda chelovechestva Iris Murdoch
e8b0e40 Izvechnoe protivorechie mezhdu poznaniem samogo sebia, kotoroe daetsia nam v ob'ektivnykh samonabliudeniiakh, i oshchushcheniem svoego "ia", priobretaemym sub'ektivno; protivorechie, iz-za kotorogo, naverno, dostizhenie istiny voobshche neosushchestvimo. Samopoznanie slishkom abstraktno, samooshchushchenie slishkom lichno, obmorochno, zamorochenno." Iris Murdoch
fa38057 There are things which are appalling to young people because young people think life should be happy and free. But life is never really happy and free in any beautiful sense. Happiness is a weak and paltry thing and perhaps"freedom" has no meaning. There are great patterns in which we are involved, and destinies which belong to us and which we love even in the moment when they destroy us." Iris Murdoch
07ad351 Statements made by distant church bells remind me it is Sunday. Today the sky has become cloudy. I have been watching the clouds and it occurs to me that I have never done this in my life before, simply sit and watch clouds. As a child I would have been far too anxious to 'waste time' in this way. And my mother would have stopped me. As I write this I am sitting on my plot of grass behind the house where I have put a chair, cushions, rugs. .. Iris Murdoch
217cbb0 We may love our chains and our stripes too. Iris Murdoch
998795a We are clay and nothing is real for us except the uncanny womb of Being into which we shall return. Iris Murdoch
02d7546 Cel ce venereaza,confera obiectului venerat putere,o putere reala,nu una imaginara,aceasta este sensul dovezii ontologice,una dintre ideie cele mai ambigue pe care le-a faurit inteligenta omeeneasca vreodata.Dar aceasta putere este infioratoare.Dorintele si atasamentele noastre creeaza zeii.Si in momentul in care te eliberezi de un atasament,vine un altul si ii ia locul in chip de consolare.Niciodata nu renuntam total la o placere,nu facem .. Iris Murdoch
9038d1a Suffering is no scandal. It is natural. Nature appoints it. All creation suffers. It suffers from having been created, if from nothing else. It suffers from being divided from God.' 'Yours is a melancholy sort of religion, Dennis. I'm afraid I don't believe in God.' 'Ah, you do. But you do not know His name. And I who know His name am only the better of you by one little word. Here is the salmon pool. Iris Murdoch
8454dcd Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one's luck. Iris Murdoch
dcd599e I can see this so clearly because I have long ago given up my own hopes of being happy. Iris Murdoch
2c10cc4 I saw her simplicity, her ignorance, her childish unkindness, her unpretty anxious little face. She was not beautiful or brilliantly clever. How false it is to say that love is blind. I could even judge her, I could even condemn her, I could even, in some possible galactic loop of thought, make her suffer. Iris Murdoch
7e9e619 I had better spend the day quietly, sleep in the afternoon perhaps, and then start again hunting for Hugo. I would have much preferred to look for Anna. But I had no idea now where to start looking. Also I wanted to lay quickly to rest the terrible suspicion that where I found Hugo now I would also find Anna. This idea didn't bear thinking about and so I didn't think about it. Iris Murdoch
2ada254 She tells so many different stories and they are all false. Iris Murdoch