“Then one day you look in the rearview mirror of your existence and realize that you can see clear down the hill-less and curveless and bridgeless road of your life, straight to the maternity ward where you were born. And then you go to college. Where your bland past meekly follows, sluggishly scraping its feet on the floor.”
—I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley.
August 2012
5 posts
“The worst thing about religion was religious people.”
—The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides.
“… Wine, lilies, and roses; the dark sea rolling beyond the windows under a round moon; young lovers separated for half a year, joined on a knife-edge of geography between war and peace, suddenly married, far from home; isolated, making love on a broad hospitable bed, performing secret rites as old as time, but forever fresh and sweet between young lovers, the best moments human existence offers—such was their wedding night. The human predicament sometimes seems a gloomy tapestry with an indistinct, baffling deisgn that swirls around and inward to brilliant naked lovers. The Bible starts with this centerpiece. Most of the old stories end with the lovers married, retiring to their sacred nakedness. But for Byron and Natalie, their story was just beginning.”
—
The Winds of War by Herman Wouk.
Submitted by cowchicken
“What made Madeleine sit up in bed was something closer to the reason she read books in the first place and had always loved them. Here was a sign that she wasn’t alone. Here was an articulation of what she had been so far mutely feeling. In bed on a Friday night, wearing sweatpants, her hair tied back, her glasses smudged, and eating peanut butter from the jar, Madeleine was in a state of extreme solitude.”
—The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides.
July 2012
11 posts
“I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget.”
—On Keeping a Notebook in Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion.
“It’s a very Greek idea, and a very profound one. Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it. And what could be more terrifying and beautiful, to souls like the Greeks or our own, than to lose control completely? To throw off the chains of being for an instant, to shatter the accident of our mortal selves?”
—The Secret History by Donna Tartt.
“In the evening he went to the cinema to see ‘The Lord of the Rings’, which he had never before had time to see. He thought that orcs, unlike human beings, were simple and uncomplicated creatures.”
—The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson.
“The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.” —The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien.
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.” —The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien.
“‘D’you know what happens when you hurt people?’ Ammu said. ‘When you hurt people, they begin to love you less. That’s what careless words do. They make people love you a little less.’”
—The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy.
“There are people who, the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves.”
—Emma by Jane Austen.
“Ammu said that human beings were creatures of habit, and it was amazing the kind of things they could get used to. You only had to look around you, Ammu said, to see that beatings with brass vases were the least of them.”
—The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy.
“Gay people don’t actually try to convert people. That’s Jehovah’s Witnesses you’re thinking of.”
—Bossypants by Tina Fey.
“What’s wrong with you? I asked myself. You are a happy person. You are an upbeat sort of person. Men smile at you on the subway, women ask you what shampoo you use. Cheer up for Christ’s sake, I told myself, relax, you’re fine, be happy, Girl. When I talk to myself I call myself Girl.”
—Going Down by Jennifer Belle.
June 2012
12 posts
“We tell ourselves stories in order to live.”
—The White Album by Joan Didion.
“Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.”
—The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion.
“You should know I disagree with a lot of traditional advice. For instance, they say the best revenge is living well. I say it’s acid in the face—who will love them now?”
—Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling.
