“Of the seven butchers who interest us, four are Tatars and three are Yids. They're at the top of the list of suspects. But, to avoid any reproaches of prejudice, I'm arresting the lot. And I'll give them a thorough working over. I”
― Boris Akunin, quote from Missions spéciales
“God has no need of cold people.”
― Boris Akunin, quote from Missions spéciales
“Paris. Reuters News Agency informs us that the gigantic and entirely useless structure of iron rods with which the French intend to astound visitors to the Fifteenth World Fair has finally been completed. This dangerous project is causing justified anxiety among the inhabitants of Paris. How can this interminable factory chimney be allowed to tower over Paris, dwarfing all the marvelous monuments of the capital with its ridiculous height? Experienced engineers express concern about whether such a tall and relatively slim structure, erected on a foundation only a third of its own height, is capable of withstanding the pressure of the wind.”
― Boris Akunin, quote from Missions spéciales
“She can't go into public care,” he explained. “She'd pine away. The poor simpleton is far too used to me.” That was when Fandorin really astounded him. “I envy you,” he said, sighing. “You're a fortunate man, Tulipov. At such a young age you already have reason to respect yourself—something you can be proud of. The Lord has given you a firm center for the whole of your life.”
― Boris Akunin, quote from Missions spéciales
“As they say, out with one eye for remembering the past, but if you forget, out with both. And”
― Boris Akunin, quote from Missions spéciales
“Just goes to show how life leaks away when you ain’t paying attention. One day you look up, look around, and the world is empty. Not empty exactly but something is wrong, there ain’t no color left to life.” outraged, he glared at Lucius. “Watsons long gone and Coxes moved away, Burdetts and Betheas, too. Ain’t none of them good old families left. Died out or gone off to the cities, gone away like they was never here at all.”
― Peter Matthiessen, quote from Shadow Country
“Mere knowledge of human psychology would in itself infallibly make us despondent if we were not cheered and kept alert by the satisfaction of expressing it.”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger
“Some people are slow to do what they promise; you are slow to promise what you have already done.”
― Suetonius, quote from The Twelve Caesars
“Cabrero, kayla said, narrowing her eyes at Alex." If you do that one more time, I will take this book from you and hit you with it till you're dead. Again.”
― Meg Cabot, quote from Awaken
“The men digging in on both sides of me cursed the stench and the mud. I began moving the heavy, sticky clay mud with my entrenching shovel to shape out the extent of the foxhole before digging deeper. Each shovelful had to be knocked off the spade, because it stuck like glue. I was thoroughly exhausted and thought my strength wouldn’t last from one sticky shovelful to the next.
Kneeling on the mud, I had dug the hole no more than six or eight inches deep when the odor of rotting flesh got worse. There was nothing to do but continue to dig, so I closed up my mouth and inhaled with short shallow breaths. Another spadeful of soil out of the hole released a mass of wriggling maggots that came welling up as though those beneath were pushing them out. I cursed and told the NCO as he came by what a mess I was digging into.
‘You heard him, he said put the holes five yards apart.’
In disgust, I drove the spade into the soil, scooped out the insects, and threw them down the front of the ridge. The next stroke of the spade unearthed buttons and scraps of cloth from a Japanese army jacket in the mud—and another mass of maggots. I kept on doggedly. With the next thrust, metal hit the breastbone of a rotting Japanese corpse. I gazed down in horror and disbelief as the metal scraped a clean track through the mud along the dirty whitish bone and cartilage with ribs attached. The shoved skidded into the rotting abdomen with a squishing sound. The odor nearly overwhelmed me as I rocked back on my heels.
I began choking and gagging as I yelled in desperation, ‘I can’t dig in here! There’s a dead Nip here!’
The NCO came over, looked down at my problem and at me, and growled, ‘You heard him; he said put the holes five yards apart.”
― Eugene B. Sledge, quote from With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa
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