“I suppose one gets to know men quickest by the things they take for granted.”
“If a man goes up into Parnassus after sunset, why should he not see strange things? The gods still walk there, and a man who would not go carefully in the country of the gods is a fool.”
“I'm not a person whom the sight of olive oil repels, and I love Greek cooking. We had onion soup with grated cheese on top; then the souvlaka, which comes spiced with lemon and herbs, and flanked with chips and green beans in oil and a big dish of tomato salad. Then cheese, and halvas, which is a sort of loaf made of grated nuts and honey, and is delicious. And finally the wonderful grapes of Greece.”
“Yes, but the artist?" said Nigel almost fiercely. "He's different, you know he is. He's driven by some compulsion: if he can't do what he knows he has to do with his life he might as well be dead. He's got to break through the world's indifference, or else break himself against it. He can't help it.”
“You made a discovery yesterday; remember? 'No man is an Island.' It's true in more ways than one. Don't go on hating yourself because there are some things you can't do and can't face on your own. None of us can.”
“The village is perched on a precipitous hillside, and the houses are built in tiers, one up behind the other, the floor of one level with the roof of the next. The whole village looks as if it were just about to slide into the depths of the valley below.”
“Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.”
“Dane discarded his speargun with visible relief. As a paladin of the Church of God Kraken, he had few options. Like many groups devoid of real power and realpolitik, the church was actually constrained by its aesthetics. Its operatives could not have guns, simply, because guns were not squiddy enough.
It was a common moan. Drunk new soldiers of the Cathedral of the Bees might whine: “It’s not that I don’t think sting-tipped blowpipes aren’t cool, it’s just…” “I’ve gotten rally good with the steam-cudgel,” a disaffected Pistonpunk might ask her elders “but wouldn’t it be useful to…?” Oh for a carbine, devout assassins pined.”
“Where did this come from?”
I bristle at the question. “I wrote it right in front of you. I didn’t cheat.”
“I’m not accusing you of cheating. I’m asking why you were able to put together five hundred words about a poem, when I can rarely get more than a compound sentence out of you.”
“When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.”
“Machines were the ideal metaphor for the central pornographic fantasy of the nineteenth century, rape followed by gratitude.”
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