Quotes from Specimen Days

Michael Cunningham ·  336 pages

Rating: (5.1K votes)


“I feel like there's something terrible and wonderful and amazing that's just beyond my grasp. I have dreams about it. I do dream, by the way. It hovers over me at odd moments. And then it's gone. I feel like I'm always on the brink of something that never arrives. I want to either have it or be free of it.”
― Michael Cunningham, quote from Specimen Days


“He wanted to tell her that he was inspired and vigilant and recklessly alone, that his body contained his unsteady heart and something else, something he felt but could not describe: porous and spiky, shifting with flecks of thought, with urge and memory; salted with brightness, flickerings of white and green and pale gold; something that loved stars because it was made of the same substance.”
― Michael Cunningham, quote from Specimen Days


“A sensation rose in him, a high tingling of his blood. There came a wave, a wind that recognized him, that did not love him or hate him. He felt what he knew as the rising of his self, the shifting innerness that yearned and feared, that was more familiar to him than anything could ever be. He knew that an answering substance gathered around him, emanating from the trees and the stars.

He stood staring at the constellations. Walt had sent him here, to find this, and he understood. He thought he understood. This was his heaven. It was not Broadway or the horse on wheels. It was grass and silence; it was a field of stars. It was what the book told him, night after night. When he died he would leave his defective body and turn into grass. He would be here like this, forever. There was no reason to fear it, because it was part of him. What he'd thought of as his emptiness, his absence of soul, was only a yearning for this.”
― Michael Cunningham, quote from Specimen Days


“Catherine thought Simon was in the locket, and in heaven, and with them still. Lucas hoped she didn't expect him to be happy about having so many Simons to contend with.”
― Michael Cunningham, quote from Specimen Days


“I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the beginning and the end. But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.”
― Michael Cunningham, quote from Specimen Days



“Gratitude is the only appropriate response to everything that happens.”
― Michael Cunningham, quote from Specimen Days


“In heaven, Lucas would be beautiful. He’d speak a language everyone understood.”
― Michael Cunningham, quote from Specimen Days


About the author

Michael Cunningham
Born place: in Cincinnati, Ohio, The United States
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“澳洲毕业证澳洲学历文凭原版制作Q/微981497266办理RMIT毕业证皇家墨尔本理工大学毕业证成绩单真实学历学位认证RMIT University澳洲毕业证澳洲学历文凭原版制作Q/微981497266办理RMIT毕业证皇家墨尔本理工大学毕业证成绩单真实学历学位认证RMIT University澳洲毕业证澳洲学历文凭原版制作Q/微981497266办理RMIT毕业证皇家墨尔本理工大学毕业证成绩单真实学历学位认证RMIT University澳洲毕业证澳洲学历文凭原版制作Q/微981497266办理RMIT毕业证皇家墨尔本理工大学毕业证成绩单真实学历学位认证RMIT University澳洲毕业证澳洲学历文凭原版制作Q/微981497266办理RMIT毕业证皇家墨尔本理工大学毕业证成绩单真实学历学位认证RMIT University澳洲毕业证澳洲学历文凭原版制作Q/微981497266办理RMIT毕业证皇家墨尔本理工大学毕业证成绩单真实学历学位认证RMIT University澳洲毕业证澳洲学历文凭原版制作Q/微981497266办理RMIT毕业证皇家墨尔本理工大学毕业证成绩单真实学历学位认证RMIT University澳洲毕业证澳洲学历文凭原版制作Q/微981497266办理RMIT毕业证皇家墨尔本理工大学毕业证成绩单真实学历学位认证RMIT University”
― Jeff Kinney, quote from Old School


“It means that every waking breath you take, every step you take, you don't just take to move your own life forward, but ours. You take it knowing I'm right there with you, irrevocably tied to every decision you make.”
― Meredith Wild, quote from Hardline


“Will power is the answer. Will power. No white bread, no Nestle's Crunch bars... I flinched and felt the last of the bars melting in my pockets.

На все вопросы ответ один — сила воли! Исключительно сила воли. Никаких булок, никаких шоколадных плиток… Я моргнул и почувствовал, как последняя из шоколадок тает у меня в кармане.”
― Ray Bradbury, quote from Death Is a Lonely Business


“This story takes place a half a billion years ago-an inconceivably long time ago, when this planet would be all but recognizable to you. Nothing at all stirred on the land except the wind and the dust. Not a single blade of grass waved in the wind, not a single cricket chirped, not a single bird soared in the sky. All these things were tens of millions of years away in the future.
But of course there was an anthropologist on hand. What sort of world would it be without an anthropologist? He was, however a very depressed and disillusioned anthropologist, for he'd been everywhere on the planet looking for someone to interview, and every tape in his knapsack was as blank as the sky. But one day as he was moping alongside the ocean he saw what seemed to be a living creature in the shallows off shore. It was nothing to brag about, just sort of a squishy blob, but it was the only prospect he'd seen in all his journeys, so he waded out to where it was bobbing in the waves.
He greeted the creature politely and was greeted in kind, and soon the two of them were good friends. The anthropologist explained as well as he could that he was a student of life-styles and customs, and begged his new friend for information of this sort, which was readily forthcoming. ‘And now’, he said at last, ‘I'd like to get on tape in your own words some of the stories you tell among yourselves.’
‘Stories?’ the other asked.
‘You know, like your creation myth, if you have one.’
‘What is a creation myth?’ the creature asked.
‘Oh, you know,’ the anthropologist replied, ‘the fanciful tale you tell your children about the origins of the world.’
Well, at this, the creature drew itself up indignantly- at least as well as a squishy blob can do- and replied that his people had no such fanciful tale.
‘You have no account of creation then?’
‘Certainly we have an account of creation,’ the other snapped. ‘But its definitely not a myth.’
‘Oh certainly not,’ the anthropologist said, remembering his training at last. ‘Ill be terribly grateful if you share it with me.’
‘Very well,’ the creature said. ‘But I want you to understand that, like you, we are a strictly rational people, who accept nothing that is not based on observation, logic, and scientific method.’
‘"Of course, of course,’ the anthropologist agreed.
So at last the creature began its story. ‘The universe,’ it said, ‘was born a long, long time ago, perhaps ten or fifteen billion years ago. Our own solar system-this star, this planet, and all the others- seem to have come into being some two or three billion years ago. For a long time, nothing whatever lived here. But then, after a billion years or so, life appeared.’
‘Excuse me,’ the anthropologist said. ‘You say that life appeared. Where did that happen, according to your myth- I mean, according to your scientific account.’
The creature seemed baffled by the question and turned a pale lavender. ‘Do you mean in what precise spot?’
‘No. I mean, did this happen on land or in the sea?’
‘Land?’ the other asked. ‘What is land?’
‘Oh, you know,’ he said, waving toward the shore, ‘the expanse of dirt and rocks that begins over there.’
The creature turned a deeper shade of lavender and said, ‘I cant imagine what you're gibbering about. The dirt and rocks over there are simply the lip of the vast bowl that holds the sea.’
‘Oh yes,’ the anthropologist said, ‘I see what you mean. Quite. Go on.’
‘Very well,’ the other said. ‘For many millions of centuries the life of the world was merely microorganisms floating helplessly in a chemical broth. But little by little, more complex forms appeared: single-celled creatures, slimes, algae, polyps, and so on.’
‘But finally,’ the creature said, turning quite pink with pride as he came to the climax of his story, ‘but finally jellyfish appeared!”
― Daniel Quinn, quote from Ismael


“    
Ivo,
 
   I may not remember what we were. I may not remember the color of your eyes when you look at the sunset or when you stare at the night sky. I may not remember how it feels like to touch your hand. I may not remember how you would like your coffee, whether black or white or sweet. I may not remember the little things that could make you smile and I may not remember how your laugh sounds each time you hear a very funny joke. I may not remember how your perfume smells like and may not remember how your favorite sweater looks like. I may not remember a lot of things about you. But one thing I remember is that I gave you my heart and it will always be yours. Wherever I may be. I am wishing for nothing but for you to be happy. I hope you find someone that will love you as much as I loved you. I hope you find something that could make you happy even if it is not me. I hope you are okay. I will be okay. I promise.
 
Brandy
 
P.S: I will love you until I die and if there’s a life after that, I’ll love you then.”
― Ysa Arcangel, quote from Forever Night Stand


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