“Elizabeth Middleton, twenty-nine years old and unmarried, overly educated and excessively rational, knowing right from wrong and fancy from fact, woke in a nest of marten and fox pelts to the sight of an eagle circling overhead, and saw at once that it could not be far to Paradise.”
― Sara Donati, quote from Into the Wilderness
“She wore her determination like war paint.”
― Sara Donati, quote from Into the Wilderness
“subject for discussion. What terrible messes we get ourselves into when we are silly enough to fall in love,”
― Sara Donati, quote from Into the Wilderness
“Very slowly Elizabeth leaned forward until her forehead rested on his shoulder, shuddering with pleasure and relief at the feel of him, at his smell.”
― Sara Donati, quote from Into the Wilderness
“Little girls are kept away from the things that would make them strong, in the name of protection and propriety.”
― Sara Donati, quote from Into the Wilderness
“The thrill of telling her true feelings without considering good manners or the propriety of what she had to say was intoxicating.”
― Sara Donati, quote from Into the Wilderness
Sara Donati
Born place: Chicago, The United States
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“I don’t care the hell what other people eat so long as they enjoy it. I can’t stand sad eaters and sad drinkers.”
― Ian Fleming, quote from From Russia With Love
“Pumpkin Bunny. Bridget's eyes drifted to the bookshelf where her favorite childhood toy sat propped up in the corner. It had been a gift from her dad from before she could remember, a soft, fluffy stuffed bunny popping out of a pumpkin like a stripper from a birthday cake.”
― Gretchen McNeil, quote from Possess
“We all know the elementary form of politeness, that of the empty symbolic gesture, a gesture-an offer-which is meant to be rejected. In John Irving's A Prayer for
Owen Meany, after the little boy Owen accidentally kills John's-his best friend's, the narrator's-mother, he is, of course, terribly upset, so, to show how sorry he is, he discreetly delivers to John a gift of the complete collection of color photos of baseball stars, his most precious possession; however, Dan, John's delicate stepfather, tells him that the proper thing to do is to return the gift. What we have here is symbolic exchange at its purest: a gesture made to be rejected; the point, the "magic" of symbolic exchange, is that, although at the end we are where we were at the beginning, the overall result of the operation is not zero but a distinct gain for both parties, the pact of solidarity. And is not something similar part of our everyday mores? When, after being engaged in a fierce competition for a job promotion with my closest friend, I win, the proper thing to do is to offer to withdraw, so that he will get the promotion, and the proper thing for him to do is to reject my offer-in this way, perhaps, our friendship can be saved....
Milly's offer is the very opposite of such an elementary gesture of politeness: although it also is an offer that is meant to be rejected, what makes hers different from the symbolic empty offer is the cruel alternative it imposes on its addressee: I offer you wealth as the supreme proof of my saintly kindness, but if you accept my offer, you will be marked by an indelible stain of guilt and moral corruption; if you do the right thing and reject it, however, you will also not be simply righteous-your very rejection will function as a retroactive admission of your guilt, so whatever Kate and Densher do, the very choice Milly's bequest confronts them with makes them guilty.”
― Slavoj Žižek, quote from The Parallax View
“the value of work? Have I taught them self-reliance? Have I taught them to take care of each”
― Douglas Preston, quote from The Codex
“There can be no relation more strange, more critical, than that between two beings who know each other only with their eyes, who meet daily, yes, even hourly, eye each other with a fixed regard, and yet by some whim or freak of convention feel constrained to act like strangers. Uneasiness rules between them, unslaked curiosity, a hysterical desire to give rein to their suppressed impulse to recognize and address each other; even, actually, a sort of strained but mutual regard. For one human being instinctively feels respect and love for another human being so long as he does not know him well enough to judge him; and that he does not, the craving he feels is evidence.”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Death in Venice and Seven Other Stories
A Million Dirty Secr...
The Willows
Nada
The Collected Poems
Decision Points
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