“It's not the end of the world at all," he said. "It's only the end for us. The world will go on just the same, only we shan't be in it. I dare say it will get along all right without us.”
“No, it wasn't an accident, I didn't say that. It was carefully planned, down to the tiniest mechanical and emotional detail. But it was a mistake.”
“I'm glad we haven't got newspapers now. It's been much nicer without them.”
“Some games are fun even when you lose. Even when you know you're going to lose before you start. It's fun just playing them.”
“Maybe we've been too silly to deserve a world like this.”
“You know," he said, "now that I've got used to the idea, I think I'd rather have it this way. We've all got to die one day, some sooner and some later. The trouble always has been that you're never ready, because you don't know when it's coming. Well, now we do know, and there's nothing to be done about it. I kind of like that. I kind of like the thought that I'll be fit and well up till the end of August and then - home. I'd rather have it that way than go on as a sick manfrom when I'm seventy to when I'm ninety.”
“If what they say is right we're none of us going to have time to do all that we planned to do. But we can keep on doing it as long as we can.”
“Security was now a thing of the past though it took a conscious effort to remember it; with no enemy in all the world there was little but the force of habit in it.”
“The news did not trouble her particularly; all news was bad, like wage demands, strikes, or war, and the wise person paid no attention to it. What was important was that it was a bright, sunny day; her first narcissi were in bloom, and the daffodils behind them were already showing flower buds.”
“You could have done something with newspapers. We didn't do it. No nation did, because we were all too silly. We liked our newspapers with pictures of beach girls and headlines about cases of indecent assault, and no Government was wise enough to stop us having them that way. But something might have been done with newspapers, if we'd been wise enough.”
“The news did not trouble her particularly; all news was bad, like wage demands, strikes, or war, and the wise person paid no attention to it.”
“All those cities, all those fields and farms, with nobody, and nothing left alive. Just nothing there. I simply can't take it in.”
“Into the world of romance, of make-belief and double brandies!”
“„Das Gefühl ist jedenfalls ein schlechter Berater. Es besitzt per definitionem keine Allgemeingültigkeit.“
„Und der Verstand ist eine Illusion“, erwidert die ideale Geliebte schnell. „Nichts weiter als ein Kostüm, in das der Mensch die Summe seiner Gefühle steckt.“ „Du sprichst in romantischen Anachronismen!“, ruft Mia. „Und du in jenen intellektuellen Sophistereien, an denen Moritz zugrunde gegangen ist!”
“Grudges don't simply disappear. And I know that no matter what people tell you to comfort you, it just sounds like sarcasm." ~ Aunt Monica”
“It is true that the sky was always beautiful but I don't remember marvelling at sunset or gazing at the dawn of a new day. Survival does not allow time for poetic reflection.”
“I met Jose Angelico the way I meet many of my customers. I have a workshop on the cemetery road, just past the coffin makers. I specialize in the small, simple stone. I am very aware that my clients have next to nothing, and renting the grave has often taken most of their money. So I modify and modify and get down to the very lowest cost. The dead, however, must have that stone: the reminder, the eternal reminder, that this man, this woman, this child---existed. On some of the graves the name is marked in paint, or even pen, and everyone knows how sad that is. Make something out of stone, I say, and noone touches the grave.The poor are not buried, you see. There is not enough ground here any more, so in the Naravo they build upwards. The graves of the poor are concrete boxes, each just big enough for the coffin. They go up and up---in some parts twenty boxes high. A funeral here is to slide the coffin in and watch the sealing of the compartment. Part of my service is that I cement the stone that I've made into place, and thus seal the chamber.”
“Manfred, Prince of Otranto, had one son and one daughter: the latter, a most beautiful virgin, aged eighteen, was called Matilda. Conrad, the son, was three years younger, a homely youth, sickly, and of no promising disposition; yet he was the darling of his father, who never showed any symptoms of affection to Matilda. Manfred had contracted a marriage for his son with the Marquis of Vicenza’s daughter, Isabella; and she had already been delivered by her guardians into the hands of Manfred, that he might celebrate the wedding as soon as Conrad’s infirm state of health would permit.”
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