“It's not much. You begin by thinking there is something extraordinary about it. But you'll find out, when you've been out in the world a while longer, unhappiness is the commonest thing there is.”
“Someone said to me once that a cigarette at the right moment is better than all the ideals in the world.”
“A man can gasp out his life beside you-and you feel none of it. Pity, Sympathy, sure-but you don't feel the pain. Your belly is whole and that's what counts. A half-yard away someone's world is snuffled out in roaring agony-and you feel nothing. That's the misery of the world.”
“A crude age. Peace is stabilized with cannon and bombers, humanity with concentration camps and pogroms. We're living in a time when all standards are turned upside-down, Kern. Today the aggressor is the shepherd of peace, and the beaten and hunted are the troublemakers of the world. What's more, there are whole races who believe it!”
“Today the aggressor is the shepherd of peace, and the beaten and hunted are the troublemakers of the world. What's more, there are whole races who believe it!”
“The more primitive a man is the better he believes himself to be.”
“Suddenly he knew all the things he should have said.”
“Courage is the fairest adornment of youth.”
“The heroes of ancient Greece wept more often than our silly, sentimental modern women. They knew it did no good to hold it back. Our ideal is the impassive courage of a statue. Unnecessary. Be sad and then you'll soon be over it.”
“The music surged down the stairs like a flashing stream—it gathered in the corridor and burst like a waterfall through the wide entry doors. It splashed over a small, lonely figure crouching on the lowest step, dark and colorless like an un-moving lump of black, a little hillock with mad, unresting eyes. It was the old man who had freed himself with such difficulty from the unrelenting window. He crouched in the corner, lost and done for, with bowed shoulders and knees drawn high, as though he would never rise again—and over him, and away in gay and flashing cascades, the music splashed and danced, strong, pitiless, unceasing as life itself.”
“I'm twenty years old,' said Laurent, 'and I've been the recipient of offers almost as long as I can remember.'
'Is that an answer?' said Damen.
'I'm not a virgin,' said Laurent.
'I wondered,' Damen said, carefully, 'if you reserved your love for women.'
'No, I--' Laurent sounded surprised. Then he seemed to realise that his surprise gave something fundamental away, and he looked away with a muttered breath; when he looked back at Damen there was a wry smile on his lips, but he said, steadily, 'No.'
'Have I said something to offend you? I didn't mean--'
'No. A plausible, benign and uncomplicated theory. Trust you to come up with it.'
'It's not my fault that no one in your country can think in a straight line,' said Damen, frowning a touch defensively.”
“I think a lot of people want to be someone, but we are scared that if we try, we won't be as good as everyone imagines we could be.”
“I did not always think he was right nor did he always think I was right but we were each the person the other trusted.”
“He wish'd to please everybody; and, having little to give, he gave expectations.”
“Ugh! Why can't Hell stay where it's at? Why does it always have to break loose?”
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