Quote a great book.

"...to wound the autumnal city. So howled out for the world to give him a name. The in-dark answered with the wind."
--Samuel R. Delany, Dhalgren

:shrug:

:toast:

As beloved scholar Krusty The Clown once said on The Simpsons, "Give a hoot...read a book."

:rofl:

burn burn burn like fabulous yellow roman candles

It just does not get better than that!

-Lolita.

"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta."


But I changed my mind...

:thumbsup:

Two from Jamie O'Neill's At Swim, Two Boys:

Jim knew this man's heart was deep and true, for he made Jim wish for an equal love and an equal truth in his heart. He was swept by a great desire to take hold Doyler's hand and tell him in his ear, That's how I think of you, that's exactly how I think of you.



Grey morning dulled the bay. Banks of clouds, Howth just one more bank, rolled to sea, where other Howths grumbled to greet them. Swollen spumeless tide. Heads that bobbed like floating gulls and gulls that floating bobbed like heads. Two heads. At swim, two boys.





And two from Flann O'Brien's At Swim-Two-Birds:

Purpose of walk: Discovery and embracing of virgins.

We attained nothing on our walk that was relevant to the purpose thereof but we filled up the loneliness of our souls with the music of our two voices, dog-racing, betting and offences against chastity being the several subjects of our discourse.



When things go wrong and will not come right,
Though you do the best you can,
When life looks black as the hour of night --
A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.




Can't find the one from Mason & Dixon I wanted to post... the part about the ear.

All this while, the Ear reposes in its Pickling-Jar of Swedish lead Crystal, as if being withheld from Time's Appetite for some Destiny obscure to all. Presently 'tis noted by Mason,-- he hopes, an effect of the light,-- that somehow, the Ear has been a-glow,-- for a while, too,-- withal, it seems, as he watches, to come to Attention, to gain muscular Tone, to grow indeed quite firm, and, in its saline Bath, erect. It is listening. Quickly Mason grips himself by his head, attempting to forestall Panick.




Heh, found it. This whole section is great. Large sections of this book are great... IMO at least. :)

The Bible. Proverbs 3:25.

"Stay out of churches, son. And don't ever let a priest near you when you're dying. All they got a key to is the shit house. And swear to me you'll never wear a lawman's badge."

- Last words of Mortimer Carsons, father of Kim Carsons.




(Burroughs by Annie Leibovitz)

Nothing grows where they have been." from "The Dixie Association" by Donald Hays

"'Goodbye, Francie,' she said.
"Francie closed the window."

She had only time, however, to move closer to the table where he had been writing, when footsteps were heard returning; the door opened, it was himself. He begged their pardon, but he had forgotten his gloves, and instantly crossing the room to the writing table, he drew out a letter from under the scattered paper, placed it before Anne with eyes of glowing entreaty fixed on her for a time, and hastily collecting his gloves, was again out of the room, almost before Mrs Musgrove was aware of his being in it: the work of an instant!

The revolution which one instant had made in Anne, was almost beyond expression. The letter, with a direction hardly legible, to "Miss A. E. --," was evidently the one which he had been folding so hastily. While supposed to be writing only to Captain Benwick, he had been also addressing her! On the contents of that letter depended all which this world could do for her. Anything was possible, anything might be defied rather than suspense. Mrs Musgrove had little arrangements of her own at her own table; to their protection she must trust, and sinking into the chair which he had occupied, succeeding to the very spot where he had leaned and written, her eyes devoured the following words:

"I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone, I think and plan. Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice when they would be lost on others. Too good, too excellent creature! You do us justice, indeed. You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men. Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating, in F. W.

"I must go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return hither, or follow your party, as soon as possible. A word, a look, will be enough to decide whether I enter your father's house this evening or never."

Such a letter was not to be soon recovered from. Half and hour's solitude and reflection might have tranquillized her; but the ten minutes only which now passed before she was interrupted, with all the restraints of her situation, could do nothing towards tranquillity. Every moment rather brought fresh agitation. It was overpowering happiness. And before she was beyond the first stage of full sensation, Charles, Mary, and Henrietta all came in.

(Jane Austen's Persuasion)

"You're kidding. A sequel? Revelations 2, just when you thought it was safe to sin?"

That was when I saw the pendulum.
The sphere, hanging from a long wire set into the ceiling of the choir, swayed back and forth with isochronal majesty.
I knew- but anyone could have sensed it in the magic of that serene breathing- that the period was governed by the square root of the length of the wire and by pi, that number which, however irrational to sub lunar minds, through a higher rationality binds the circumference and diameter of all possible circles. The time it took the sphere to swing from end to end was determined by an arcane conspiracy between the most timeless of measures: the singularity of the point of suspension, the duality of the plane's dimensions, the triadic beginning of pi, the secret quadratic nature of the root, and the unnumbered perfection of the circle itself.

It now lately seemed like a kind of black miracle to me that people could actually care deeply about a subject or pursuit, and could go on caring this way for years on end. Could dedicate their entire lives to it. It seemed admirable and at the same time pathetic. We are all dying to give our lives away to something, maybe. God or Satan, politics or grammar, topology or philately -- the object seemed incidental to this will to give oneself away, utterly. To games or needles, to some other person. Something pathetic about it. A flight-from in the form of a plunging-into.



Tough to choose between this and Poor Tony's seizure on the train...

I wish DFW was still with us.

Neil Gaiman - American Gods

;-)

"If that's how you feel," she said, "why marry me?"

I explained that it had no importance really, but, if it would give her pleasure, we could get married right away. I pointed out that, anyhow, the suggestion came from her; as for me, I'd merely said, "Yes."

Then she remarked that marriage was a serious matter.

To which I answered: "No."

She kept silent after that, staring at me in a curious way. Then she asked:

"Suppose another girl had aked you to marry her --I mean, a girl you liked in the same way as you like me -- would you have said 'Yes' to her, too?"

The laurel, the lizard and the stone will come no more. The women weeping at the gate have gone and will not come again. And pain and pride and death will pass, and will not come again. And light and dawn will pass, and the start and the cry of a lark will pass, and will not come again.

And we shall pass, and shall not come again.

==="On the Path, Off the Trail" essay from the book "The Practice of the Wild" by Gary Snyder

"Mountaineers climb peaks for the great view, the cooperation and
comradeship, the lively hardship - but mostly because it puts you out
there where the unknown happens, where you encounter surprise."



===Grapes of Wrath===


"For the quality of owning freezes you forever into "I," and cuts you off forever from the "we."

"Sure I got sins. Ever'body got sins. A sin is somepin you ai't sure about. Them people that's sure about ever'thing an' ain't got no sin-well, with that kind a son-of-a-bitch, if I was God I'd kick their ass right outa heaven!" - Casy

====East of Eden===

"You know, if chickens had government and church and history, they would take a distant and distasteful view of human joy. Let any gay and hopeful thing happen to a man, and some chicken goes howling to the block." Sam Hammilton talking as Lee butchers a couple of hens for Caleb and Aaron's naming

"It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our deth brings no pleasure to the world" - narrator

==Dune

"This wise man observed that wealth is a tool of freedom. But the pursuit of wealth is the way to slavery."
Frank Herbert

==Damn! A Book of Calumny" by H. L. Mencken===

"...one who leads an active and vigorous life, and so faces hazards and uses himself up- in brief, one who lives at hight tempo and with full joy,..., in fact, die slightly sooner than the teetotaler, but he lives infinitely longer." pg 217 in 3 early works edition) "Alcohol" is the title of the chapter
teetotaler in this context to me means someone living timidly not just someone not drinking


===And for fun: Revelations Space" by Alastair Reynolds

"Believe me, when you're dealing with infectious alien mind parasites, I always find primitive is best."