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2c8392c No one had ever shouted at me in my life: my mother with her quiet voice, my gentle father. But I found something bitter inside myself, something of that winter blown into my heart: the sound of my mother coughing, and the memory of the story the way they'd told it in the village square so many times, about a girl who made herself a queen with someone else's gold, and never paid her debts. Naomi Novik
2b204af I recognized that hunger: a devouring thing that would gulp down lives with pleasure and would only pretend to care about law or justice, unless you had some greater power behind you that it couldn't find a way to cheat or break, and that would never, never be satisfied. wealth greed corruption power Naomi Novik
e98d88a You have not paid for this victory, false one, cheat, and I will give you nothing. Naomi Novik
d5a9304 I am sick of the quarrels of nations and kings, and I would not give a ha'pence for any empire other than our valley, if that can content your ambition. Naomi Novik
08ea859 Then she'd straightened up and announced in irritation, "I've fallen out of time," before vanishing in a great cloud of smoke." witch Naomi Novik
5369728 If I could have remembered, at least some of the words would have been wrong: like hearing again a half-remembered favorite tale from childhood and finding it unsatisfying, or at least not as I'd remembered it. Naomi Novik
e6bbb0e if people grew milder or kinder with age, he certainly hadn't. Naomi Novik
8f53c8d That Staryk wanted to take her for nothing. He made her give him gold just to live, as if she belonged to him because he was strong enough to kill her. My father was strong enough to kill me but that did not mean I belonged to him. He sold me for six kopeks, for three pigs, for a jug of krupnik. He tried to sell me again and again like I was still his no matter how many times he sold me. And that was how that Staryk thought. He wanted to ke.. Naomi Novik
edadba2 But the world I wanted wasn't the world I lived in, and if I would do nothing until I could repair every terrible thing at one, I would do nothing forever. courage activism hard-choices determination Naomi Novik
da0b4ff I didn't really understand what mothers were, because mine was in a tree, but I knew they were very good things and you were very angry and sad if you lost them. Naomi Novik
6d45938 I would have preferred it if she'd slapped me across the face, and laughed at me, so I could hate her. I didn't want to be the good fairy in her story, scattering blessings on her hearth. Where did all those fairies come from, and how rich could they be in joy to spend their days flitting around to more-or-less deserving girls and bestowing wishes on them? The lonely old woman next door who died unlamented and left an empty house to rob, wi.. Naomi Novik
12b31d7 Whatever was carrying me dropped me again with an ungraceful thump, and I lay gasping and throat-sore on the earth--the warm earth, lush with soft green grass, though it silvered with frost in a circle around where the Staryk knelt. Naomi Novik
47326f3 Where readers of Murdoch can begin a new novel with a quiet confidence, opening a Burgess book is an exercise in anxiety: what the devil is he up to this time? Thomas C. Foster
9598b0b Memory. Symbol. Pattern. These are the three items that, more than any other, separate the professorial reader from the rest of the crowd. Thomas C. Foster
83e375d of his need to assert responsibility for his own life. It may be that Adela does panic in the face of Nothingness, only recovering herself when she takes responsibility by recanting in the witness box. Perhaps it's all about nothing more than her own self-doubts, her own psychological or spiritual difficulties. Thomas C. Foster
7432f31 And we feel that those characters couldn't be anywhere but where they are, that those characters couldn't say the things they say if they were uprooted and planted in, say, Minnesota or Scotland. Thomas C. Foster
c45ba4d History is story, too. Thomas C. Foster
db2464b Literary works are not democracies. We hold this truth to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal. We may, but the country of Novels, Etc., doesn't. In that faraway place, no character is created equal. One or two of them get all the breaks; the rest exist to get them to the finish line. literature equality heroes sidekicks Thomas C. Foster
3a4b2a5 Going After Cacciato Thomas C. Foster
dd49c2a corollaries--where have I seen his face, don't I know that Thomas C. Foster
b4098cd I heard he went home to Poughkeepsie and moved back in with his mom. Francine Prose
e8adfbd But love is strange, as they used to say at the Chameleon Club. Even those of us who value intelligence over appearance have discovered, to our chagrin, that a high IQ doesn't necessarily translate into kindness or even conscience. lovers relationships love Francine Prose
d715fcc Maybe real love is being able to ask, Do I have greens in my teeth? love Francine Prose
7538235 Nabokov, Heinrich von Kleist, Raymond Carver, Jane Bowles, James Baldwin, Alice Munro, Mavis Gallant--the list goes on and on. They are the teachers to whom I go, the authorities I consult, the models that still help to inspire me with the energy and courage it takes to sit down at a desk each day and resume the process of learning, anew, to write. Francine Prose
ec89680 I have one outstanding trait in my character, which must strike anyone who knows me for any length of time, and that is my self-knowledge. I can watch myself and my actions, just like an outsider. Francine Prose
525d66a Une with diffraction, just as if we let a thousand John Gribbin
11dd70b Reader, I married him. It turned out the sounds I heard coming from the attic weren't the screams of Mr Rochester's mad wife Bertha. It wasn't the wife who burned to death in the fire that destroyed Thornfield Hall and blinded my future husband when he tried to save her. After we'd first got engaged, he'd had to admit that he was already married, and we'd broken off our engagement. He'd asked me to run away with him anyway. Naturally, I'd r.. mr-rochester parrot Francine Prose
5f05b70 Love is blooming on the riverbanks, in the alleys of Montmartre. Park benches exist for lovers exhausted by excessive kissing. Francine Prose
ab24b92 Don't come to Paris if you're planning a solitary hike through a sexual desert. Francine Prose
986f8ff Don't order boeuf bourguignon if you're a vegetarian, don't venture into the tearooms if you don't like ladies with lapdogs. Don't come to Paris if you're planning a solitary hike through a sexual desert. Francine Prose
dfbe164 Hemingway should have stayed in the Midwest. He ruined things for the rest of us, telling all those lies. The lie about courage, the lie about every red-blooded male needing to kill a bull or climb Mount Kilimanjaro. Francine Prose
4e4b389 One: See the two of them everywhere. Contemplate suicide. Would it seem too tourist-y to jump off the Eiffel Tower? Francine Prose
7727996 Two: Distract yourself. Paris has something for everyone. Let's imagine you are feeling slightly disenchanted with women. Dozens of places will persuade you that a beautiful woman is nothing more than a beautiful man in a dress. Francine Prose
9585519 But did I ever get over her? She came to symbolize everything I wanted and would never have. Francine Prose
22837bc Many people have a gift for language that flows when they are talking and dries up when they are confronted with the blank page, Francine Prose
9196135 You think, Fuck it. The guy's a genius. He deserves her. What is a woman, after all? You are alive and in Paris. Francine Prose
be6c185 Yes to it all. I had become a puppy that stands on its hind legs and barks when its master fetches its leash. Francine Prose
6637501 I was only pretending to be the underpaid, duplicitous, ineffective, struggling teacher of immigrant French. The real Suzanne was the lover and muse of a brilliant artist. Francine Prose
eaf552a I wanted to know what he thought about my loving a man whose bills were being paid by another woman. Francine Prose
0008262 I was trying to communicate--with nothing so obvious as a smile, but let's say a smile of the eyes--my admiration for the chic of women in tuxedos escorting women in evening gowns. Francine Prose
d7107c7 If I were like Lionel, I would write a book: Obvious Lies, Bad Advice, and Wrong Information I've Gotten from Men. A book? An encyclopedia! But in this case my friend was right. Francine Prose
3da88f0 Staying awake seemed like a gift until, as so often happens with gifts, it became a burden. Francine Prose
751bfea How ashamed most of us would be, if we were reminded of some past behavior, some attitude that we maintained while under the delusion that we were in love--and were loved in return. Francine Prose
6c1014c He claimed to be a Marxist, the only one of his claims I believed. He had that Marxist passion for oysters and good Sancerre, and that Marxist paralysis when the waiter brought the check. Already it's obvious how much the Communists got wrong, overbetting on human high-mindedness, lowballing human desire. marxism Francine Prose