May 2012
6 posts
…there seemed some necessity of taking all or nothing; it was as if for the remainder of his life he was condemned to carry with him the egos of certain people, early met and early loved, and to be only as complete as they were complete themselves. There was some element of loneliness involved-so easy to be loved-so hard to love.
-Tender is the Night (245)
…he used to think that he wanted to be good, he wanted to be kind, he wanted to be brave and wise, but it was all pretty difficult. He wanted to be loved, too, if he could fit it in.
-Tender is the Night (133)
Often people display a curious respect for a man drunk, rather like the respect of simple races for the insane. Respect rather than fear. There is something awe-inspiring in one who has lost all inhibitions, who will do anything. Of course we make him pay afterword for his moment of superiority, his moment of impressiveness.
-Tender is the Night (108)
Later she remembered all the hours of the afternoon as happy-one of those uneventful times that seem at the moment only a link between past and future pleasure but turn out to have been the pleasure itself.
-Tender is the Night (59)
…at times she gave the impression of repose that was at once static and evocative. This was because she knew few words and believed in none, and in the world she was rather silent, contributing just her share of urbane humor with a precision that approached meagerness. But at the moment when strangers tended to grow uncomfortable in the presence of this economy she would seize the topic and rush...
I never saw the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock or the parties on Gatsby’s lawn, but they seem more vivid than things that I actually lived. If we are the sum of our experiences, as I believe we are, then books are a more important part of my life than my actual life.
-George R.R. Martin
April 2012
4 posts
“[Charles] Schulz’s characters reminded people of the never ceasing...”
The next person who tells me to “write a book” like it’s some sort of solution to all of my problems is going to get a stern look of disapproval because that’s the only response I have the energy for.
Sociopaths, by definition, lack compassion and remorse. Some young women in our culture, on the other hand, are overwhelmed by those very same things. Think of emotional sensitivity as a spectrum from 0-10, similar to the volume controls for a radio. It’s healthy to be tuned into the needs of others at about 4 or 5 on the continuum. At that volume, you’re aware of the needs of those...
Many times he had tried unsuccessfully to let go his hold on her. They had many fine times together, fine talks between the love of the white night, but always when he turned away from her into himself he left her holding Nothing in her hands and staring at it, calling it many names, but knowing it was only the hope that he would come back soon.
-Tender is the Night (180)
March 2012
6 posts
The delicate illusions that get us through life can only stand so much strain.
The Rum Diary (169)
And beneath his pessimism, his bleak conviction that all the machinery was rigged against him, at the bottom of his soul was a faith that he was going to outwit it, that by carefully watching the signs he was going to know when to dodge and be spared. It was fatalism with a loophole, and all you had to do to make it work was never miss a sign. Survival by coordination, as it were. The race is not...
He was one of those people who could go to New York and be “fascinating,” but here in his own world he was just a cheap functionary.
The Rum Diary (135)
No matter how much I wanted all these things that I needed money to buy, there was some devilish current pushing me off in another direction-toward anarchy and poverty and craziness.
The Rum Diary (134)
At the same time, I shared a dark suspicion that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actors, kidding ourselves along on a senseless oddyssey. It was the tension beween these two poles-a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other-that kept me going.
The Rum Diary (5)
1 tag
February 2012
10 posts
1 tag
Someday Never Comes-Creedence Clearwater Revival
“We are dying from overthinking. We are slowly killing ourselves by thinking...”
– Anthony Hopkins (via -lumiere)
January 2012
6 posts
“Preppy doesn’t chase into a trend - it’s routed in the classics and updated each...”
– Tommy Hilfiger (via theprepheritage)
“[television is] a medium of entertainment which permits millions of people to listen to the same joke at the same time, and yet still be lonesome”
-T.S. Eliot
December 2011
7 posts
1 tag
November 2011
8 posts
Frank Black - Sing for Joy
October 2011
7 posts
The Hollies - The Air That I Breathe
“In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into...”
– Albert Schweitzer (via browl)