“We look at each other with shy relief. It's the look two odd socks give when they recognise each other in the wild.”
“Stress level: extreme. It's like she was a jar with the lid screwed on too tight, and inside the jar were pickles, angry pickles, and they were fermenting, and about to explode.”
“My problems are like waves - just as one disappears with a snarl and a hiss there’s another shaping up to knock me down.”
“Something large and happy has unfolded in my chest, erupting in a smile that won’t quit. I can’t remember ever feeling so light-hearted. Or is my heart full? Or bursting? Not aching, that’s for sure.”
“... you cow,' Estelle added. 'I heard that.' 'Give the woman the geriatric audiology medal,' Estelle said. 'I heard that, too', her mother said, from the other side of the door.”
“Guys, please, one life-changing shock at a time, I felt like saying.”
“REVISITING THE LIST
1. Kiss Estelle
Okay, at least I've met her. She thinks I'm a creep. And that's withought her knowing I've read her diaries. Unless we somehow fall over, exactly aligned, lip to lip, and gravity causes the pressure, or we find ourselves in a darkened room and through a series of Shakespearian ID muddles she thinks she's kissing someone else, I can't say how this is ever going to happen.”
“It’s the look two odd socks give when they recognise each other in the wild.”
“Fred is staying with his mother these holidays. She's living in London for six months, in Chelsea, studying Georgian underwear at the National Art Library. It's a thesis, not a fetish.”
“There's nothing more satisfying than being stupid with a friend.”
“Oh, if only it were possible to find understanding,” Joseph exclaimed. “If only there were a dogma to believe in. Everything is contradictory, everything tangential; there are no certainties anywhere. Everything can be interpreted one way and then again interpreted in the opposite sense. The whole of world history can be explained as development and progress and can also be seen as nothing but decadence and meaninglessness. Isn’t there any truth? Is there no real and valid doctrine?”
The master had never heard him speak so fervently. He walked on in silence for a little, then said: “There is truth, my boy. But the doctrine you desire, absolute, perfect dogma that alone provides wisdom, does not exist. Nor should you long for a perfect doctrine, my friend. Rather, you should long for the perfection of yourself. The deity is within you, not in ideas and books. Truth is lived, not taught. Be prepared for conflicts, Joseph Knecht - I can see that they already have begun.”
“I would still be with you. But I could sleep outside, so it would not be so obvious. I do not need to attend your councils. I—'
'No. The Phthians will not care. And the others can talk all they like. I will still be Aristos Achaion.' Best of the Greeks.
'Your honor could be darkened by it."
'Then it is darkened.' His jaw shot forward, stubborn. 'They are fools if they let my glory rise or fall on this.”
“You're not weak at all. Wounded, but that's nothing to be ashamed of.”
“A reader doesn't really see the characters in a story; he feels them.”
“But with a sigh he had released her hand, while she was so lost in the fantasy that she hadn't felt it go away, as if he'd known the best moment to let go.”
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