“Low branches, dead and snapping against us. On the lookout for rattlesnakes. But the path was short enough, and soon we were on a kind of terrace. Old lawn overgrown by grass and weed, old concrete cracked in discrete chunks, vast areas overrun. An enchanted place for me, and only for me, because I was too young to remember, and so in my mind this place could become more.”
― David Vann, quote from Goat Mountain
“That night longer than all my life before it. No scale or measure in this world can ever be held constant. We are always slipping.”
― David Vann, quote from Goat Mountain
“We're not supposed to touch the dead. This is why we make a comfortable afterlife for them, so they will not reach out. We hope to distract them, keep them busy. Burial is a hope.”
― David Vann, quote from Goat Mountain
“WE THINK OF CAIN AS THE ONE WHO KILLED HIS BROTHER, but who else was around to kill? They were the first two born. Cain killed what was available. The story has nothing to do with brothers.”
― David Vann, quote from Goat Mountain
“Yalnızca biz değil, bizden önceki herkes için de olduğu gibi, ıstırap çekmenin ve insan ömrünün bir simgesi olarak kendi haçını taşıyan İsa için de olduğu gibi, hayat tekrardan ibarettir. Tüm hikâyelerimizde bizler şu yeryüzünde bir ağırlığı sürükleyip taşırız. Buna Çile denir. İsa, kendimize acımamızın hikâyesidir.”
― David Vann, quote from Goat Mountain
David Vann
Born place: in Adak, Alaska, The United States
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“I have often thought I should change my name to something more fitting. 'Damned for all eternity' or 'Swims in the lake of fire'. I'll have to think on that some more, find a way to condense it so it rolls off the tongue better.”
― Travis Luedke, quote from Blood Slave
“I came to do business, and you’re starting this shit?” Park touched his arm. “Come. We speak elsewhere.” “Fuck that. I’m not going anywhere.” He shook off Park’s hand, but Park gripped him again. “You are not here to die. I am not here to threaten. Walk here. Away from our men, so no one hear.” Park steered him across the lot to a sleeping flatbed. I followed along with them. Park’s men floated into new positions without being told, securing the area and isolating Ramos’s thugs to give us privacy. Telepathy. Or maybe they were good at their jobs. We were in the sun, and hot, but alone between the big trucks with their men out of earshot. Ramos shook off Park’s hand again, and squirmed like he thought someone might stab him. “What the fuck are you doing, bringing your guns? You think you can scare me into returning your money?” I said, “I can give you the Syrian.” Just like that. In his face. It caught him off guard, and took him a moment to catch up. He glanced at Park, then looked over both shoulders as if he expected federal agents to climb out of the trucks. “What”
― Robert Crais, quote from Taken
“It is not enough for the Negroes to declare that color-prejudice is the sole cause of their social condition, nor for the white South to reply that their social condition is the main cause of prejudice. They both act as reciprocal cause and effect, and a change in neither alone will bring the desired effect. Both must change, or neither can improve to any great extent."(p.88)...."Only by a union of intelligence and sympathy across the color-line in this critical period of the Republic shall justice and right triumph,”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, quote from The Souls of Black Folk
“la admiración por el Padre, símbolo de lo cerrado y agresivo, capaz de chingar y abrir, se transparenta en una expresión que empleamos cuando queremos imponer a otro nuestra superioridad: "Yo soy tu padre" […] No es el fundador de un pueblo; no es el patriarca que ejerce la patria protestad; no es rey, juez, jefe de clan. Es el poder, aislado en su misma potencia, sin relación ni compromiso con el mundo exterior. Es la incomunicación pura, la soledad que se devora a sí misma y devora lo que toca. No pertenece a nuestro mundo; no es de nuestra ciudad; no vive en nuestro barrio. Viene de lejos, está lejos siempre. Es el extraño. Es imposible no advertir la semejanza que guarda la figura del "macho" con la del conquistador español. Ése es el modelo –más mítico que real– que rige las representaciones que el pueblo mexicano se ha hecho de los poderosos: caciques, señores feudales, hacendados, políticos, generales, capitanes de industria. Todos ellos son "machos, "chingones".”
― Octavio Paz, quote from The Labyrinth of Solitude and Other Writings
“It is life that is the reality and the mystery. Life is vastly different from mere chemic matter fluxing in high modes of motion. Life persists. Life is the thread of fire that persists through all the modes of matter. I know. I am life. I have lived ten thousand generations. I have lived millions of years. I have possessed many bodies. I, the possessor of these many bodies, have persisted. I am life. I am the unquenched spark ever flashing and astonishing the face of time, ever working my will and wreaking my passion on the cloddy aggregates of matter, called bodies, which I have transiently inhabited.”
― Jack London, quote from The Star Rover
Hadji Murad
Angels & Demons - Ma...
M. Butterfly
Franco
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Discourses and Selec...BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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