“When you don't talk, there's a lot of stuff that ends up not getting said.”
“But it turns out that even if I don’t talk a lot, when it’s something that matters I still have a lot to say.”
“It was like he was in a contest to see who could do the least work, only he was the only contestant.”
“Everyone I looked at, their whole lives, did exactly what they were supposed to do
without even questioning it, without even wondering if they could
do something different.”
“I hate it when people make fun of me and it turns out they're right.”
“Sometimes,well,all the time,I can't think of what to say because I'm so dumb and stuff,and then maybe I think of it like five days later.”
“It kind of struck me how great it would be to go out with a guy that size. And if you, you know, got tired of dating him, you could always use him as a house or something.”
“I milked, of course, and did some work around the barn, and tried not to think about Brian, which was like trying not to breathe.”
“But you know, even worrying about haircuts couldn't depress me. Because every time I started sinking low, I'd just remember about football. All this time I'd thought I wanted to be a trainer, when it turned out I wanted to be a player instead. I saw something I wanted to do and I decided to do it. The feeling of freedom this gave me—I can't even describe it. It was my decision. I chose it. I am not a cow.”
“You can’t think about how much you have left to do because that’s just one thought, one sad thought, that’ll make you bummed out all day long. Instead you’ve got to think about how much you’ve already done.”
“Talk Back? That's really what it's called? You're supposed to walk into some church basement and say, 'I'm here to learn how to Talk Back'?”
“I saw something I wanted to do and I decided to do it. The feeling of freedom it gave me- I can't even describe it. It was my decision. I chose it.”
“I swear, every person I know gets far more satisfaction from doing good deeds than receiving them. Maybe that's the whole point in the end, all of us putting up with good deeds, tolerating them as best we can, counting the minutes until we have the opportunity to reciprocate.”
“trying to make something sound innocent always backfires—I know that just from being a kid”
“show me a man who lives alone and has a perpetually dirty kitchen, and 5 times out of 9 I'll show you an exceptional man." "show me a man who lives alone and has a perpetually clean kitchen, and 8 times out of 9 I'll show you a man with detestable spiritual qualities.”
“A storm came chasing the sky away. And virgin sands
Drank all the water of the evening woods,
God's wind blew icicles into the ponds;
As I wept I saw gold,- and could not drink.
- Delirium II - Alchemy of the Word”
“British Columbia has been described as a banana republic, only with bigger bananas,”
“and nominally a cigar manufacturer. He never came to the club except on nights like this, when Mr. and Mrs. Ammermann would entertain a few of their—her—friends at a smaller table. Mildred, towering above Losch, the club steward, and pointing, daintily for her, with one finger as she held a small stack of place-cards in her left hand, apparently was one woman who had not heard about the business of the night before. It was axiomatic in Gibbsville that you could tell Mill Ammermann anything and be sure it wouldn’t be repeated; because Mill probably was thinking of the mashie-niblick approach over the trees to the second green. Julian derived some courage from her smile. He always had liked Mill anyway. He was fragmentarily glad over again that Mill did not live in New York, for in New York she would have been marked Lesbian on sight.”
“Out of that night and day of unconditional wrath, folks would’ve expected to see any city, if it survived, all newly reborn, purified by flame, taken clear beyond greed, real-estate speculating, local politics—instead of which, here was this weeping widow, some one-woman grievance committee in black, who would go on to save up and lovingly record and mercilessly begrudge every goddamn single tear she ever had to cry, and over the years to come would make up for them all by developing into the meanest, cruelest bitch of a city, even among cities not notable for their kindness.”
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