author |
title |
comments / quotes |
| Gruen, Sara | Water for Elephants |
....But then in your thirties something strange starts to happen.
It's a mere hiccup at first, an instant of hesitation.
How old are you? Oh, I'm -- you start confidently, but then you stop.... ....Nothing happens to me anymore. That's the reality of getting old, and I guess that's really the crux of the matter. I'm not ready to be old yet.... ...why the hell shouldn't I run away with the circus?... |
| Cocteau, Jean | The Holy Terrors |
....She did not thank him.
She was accustomed to miracles and accepted them as part of daily life.
She expected them to happen, and they always did.... ....Wealth is an inborn attitude of mind, like poverty.... |
| Quinn, Daniel | Ishmael |
....Global population control is always something that's going to happen in the future.... ....Mankind was not needed to bring order to the world.... ....The people of your culture cling with fanatical tenacity to the specialness of man. They want desperately to perceive a vast gulf between man and the rest of creation. This mythology of human superiority justifies their doing whatever they please with the world... ....there's no telling how he might deceive himself. Not knowing the truth, he might say to himself, "Whatever I can justify doing is good and whatever I cannot justify doing is evil."... ....To call it daunting is like calling the Atlantic damp.... |
| Smith, Richard | your cat's just not that into you |
....Cats live according to their own rules and regulations!
They have no time for being into you, let alone that into you! Lower your expectations!... ...accept that cats are little kings and queens, accountable to no one except...well, you know who.... ....Cats are genetically hardwired to feel worthy of everyone's love. They are also hardwired to believe that no one is worthy of theirs.... |
| Kafka, Franz | The Trial |
....He'd always tended to take things lightly, to believe the worst only when it arrived,
making no provision for the future, even when things looked bad.... ...the client finally forgot the entire world, desiring only to trudge along this mistaken path to the end of his trial. He was no longer a client, he was the lawyer's dog.... ....The judgement isn't simply delivered at some point; the proceedings gradually merge into the judgement.... |
| Edwards, Kim | The Secrets of a Fire King |
...."I didn't think scientists believed in mystery." "If there were no mystery, [], there would be no science".... ...most of the time love boiled down to another word for loss, or for getting what you wanted.... ....She is learning now what it took me years to understand: That there is always a cost, that the past can be transformed but not discarded.... |
| Gaaserud, Michaela & Dexter, Renee (Ed.) | From Fairbanks to Boston (50 Great U.S. Marathons) |
....Equinox (special points): Tough course in the middle of nowhere. Now we're talking. To have fun you don't need to train much, you just need attitude. You are rarely disappointed on a course in the mountains. Competition isn't everything. Experience counts a lot, but don't underestimate the youth in your competition. It helps to have a course with character as it brings out the character on the course. |
| Rowling, J.K. | Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows |
....We're all human, aren't we?
Every human life is worth the same, and worth saving.... ....It is a curious thing ... but perhaps those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it. Those who ... have leadership thrust upon them, and take up the mantle because they must, and find to their own surprise that they wear it well.... ....Of course it is happening inside your head ... but why on earth should that mean it is not real?... |
| Rowling, J.K. | Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince |
...."People expect you to have cooler friends than us," said Luna,
once again displaying her knack for embarrassing honesty.... ....Girls were very strange sometimes.... ....Harry was left to ponder in silence the depths to which girls would sink to get revenge.... ....It was important ... to fight, and fight again, and keep fighting, for only then could evil be kept at bay, though never quite eradicated.... [...if only we could agree on what Evil is, GB?... or is that just Stupid?...] |
| Rowling, J.K. | Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix |
....So you think he's touched in the head?... No, I just think he's been very lonely for a long time.... ....One person can't feel all that at once, they'd explode.... Just because you've got the emotional range of a teaspoon doesn't mean we all have.... ....His priority did not seem to be to teach them what he knew, but rather to impress upon them that nothing, not even [] knowledge, was foolproof.... |
| Rowling, J.K. | Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire |
Hmmm, according to my logs I already read this in 2001? I had no recollection, must have been a beach read.
Oh well, it does get me back in line to at some point start on the remaining three. ....It is a strange thing, but when you are dreading something, and would give anything to slow down time, it has a disobliging habit of speeding up.... ...[] wouldn't recognize a joke if it danced naked in front of him wearing .... a tea cozy.... |
| Leo, Jenefer L. (Ed.) | what color is your jockstrap? |
....I arrive eager to make sense of everything.
But the more time passes, the more I'm reminded that this is not so easily accomplished,
and that the world is an impossibly complicated place.
And then, as hard as it is, I try to make peace with my confusion, and even, on rare occasions, embrace it.... |
| Bank, Melissa | the wonder spot |
...says, "It sounds like he's in love," and adds that the world's most coveted state is characterized by
unrelieved insecurity and almost constant pain.... ....As soon as I heard her voice, it was like a switch flipped my personality off... Basically, I disappeared.... |
| Farly, David and Sholl, Jessie (Ed.) |
Travelers' Tales Prague and the Check Republic |
....Who said banality is not interesting?... ....Time and distance only served to heighten the perfection.... ....Quality of life cannot be measured with money. Convenience will never replace joy.... |
| Kafka, Franz | The Metamorphosis |
(re-read) ....When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed... |
| Haynes, Melinda | Chalktown |
....His life was so small he could climb inside it and disappear... ....Sometimes a dream is the onliest real thing.... ....But I believe God slung us out here, set things spinning the way they ort to based on nature, and then He just brushed his hands together and said, "I think I'll just stand back and watch these folks live their lives as best they can.".... ....I learned a long time ago there aint no peace in this world except between the covers of my own bed.... ...."It aint the same with boys. Boys will make their way. They caint help it. The world's set up for a man. Set spinning by God who just so happened to be a man." Idiot, she thought, shaking her head.... ....Who's to say what a person believes. Or should believe. Or should not believe. Am I hurting anybody?.... |
| Berg, Elizabeth | The Art of Mending |
....I met Pete at a time when I was ready for a truly nice guy,
out from under the wildly erroneous assumptions that dangerous men are fun
and inconsistent men are interesting.... ....This is my deal: If I have to fly, I get a People magazine and a giant-size Snickers.... ....If we live more than once, I want to find him again.... ....You just can't do all you intend. Every mother fails.... ....But we, like most children, did not resonate much to things beyond the day at hand. History had nothing to do with us.... |
| Azzopardi, Trezza | Remember Me |
....There's not a lot of wisdome in age, despite what they say.
Truth is, as you get older, things get further away.... |
| Harris, Joanne | Holy Fools |
....Must there always be a game?... Why...what else is there?... ....It seems to me that there must be something horribly flawed in a Creator who persists in testing his creatures to destruction, in providing a world well stocked with pleasures only to announce that all pleasure is sin, in creating mankind imperfect, then expecting us to aspire to perfection.... |
| McInerney, Jay | Bacchus & Me |
...(Drinking it is like performing a sexual act that involves silk sheets,
melted dark chocolate, and black cherries, while the mingled scent of cinnamon, coffee, and
cola wafts through the air.)... |
| Goodman, Allegra | Paradise Park |
....There are all different famous kinds of sleep.
The sleep of the just, and the sleep of the good -- but there's nothing like the sleep of the
totally devastated. Nothing so sound. Nothing so deep.
You hit the pillow and your eyes shut, and your whole body sighs with relief.
You don't want to wake up, ever.... ....I think you talk so much about your seeking and your spiritual growth you don't actually ever manage to do any. I think you're so focused on yourself you're blind to what's actually happening to you.... ....Nowadays, women were trying so hard to be equal to men that in fact they were forgetting they were better than men -- we had powers of purity and spirituality that no men could match. And so, in fact, women all around were giving up their specialness that they had been born with... ....Being married was such a solemn happy state. I'd never though those two words went together, but with marriage they did. When you were married you thought about the present moment, but you also thought about the future -- so that was happiness and solemnity together.... |
| Nin, Anais | Little Birds |
...no longer the girl but the woman already being born.... |
| Miller, Henry | Tropic of Capricorn |
....Because people are naturally idiots, naturally sluggards, naturally cowards... ....To be accepted and appreciated you must nullify yourself, make yourself indistinguishable from the herd. You may dream, if you dream alike. But if you dream something different you are not in America, of America American, but a Hottentut in Africa, ora Kalmuck, or a chimpanzee. The moment you have a "different" thought you cease to be an American. And the moment you become something different you find yourself in Alaska, or Easter Island, or Iceland.... ....Everything American will disappear one day more completely than that which was Greek, or Roman, or Egyptian.... ....I was so lucid that they said I was daffy.... ....Every time you come to the limit of what is demanded of you, you are faced with the same problem -- to be yourself!... |
back to kcarlson, ARSC Home Page, ARSC Personal Home Page Disclaimer