Gustav Meyrink · 528 pages
Rating: (440 votes)
“Nothing essential happens through death, only through birth and that is the whole trouble - But shouldn't we be speaking of something more important than life and death?”
― Gustav Meyrink, quote from The Angel of the West Window
“Una volta ho letto, non ricordo più dove, che agli oggetti antichi può legarsi una maledizione, uno scongiuro, un incantesimo, i quali poi vanno a colpire chi si mette in casa e custodisce simili chincaglierie. Sai forse che cosa inneschi, quando richiami con un fischio un cane randagio che ti viene incontro durante una passeggiata serale? Per compassione lo porti al caldo, nella tua stanza, ed ecco che, all'improvviso, dal suo pelo nero fa capolino il diavolo.
Io, pronipote di John Dee, sto forse vivendo ciò che accadde un tempo al dottor Faust?”
― Gustav Meyrink, quote from The Angel of the West Window
“Мы, люди, не знаем, кто мы есть. Самих себя мы привыкли воспринимать в определенной «упаковке», той, которая ежедневно смотрит на нас из зеркала и которую нам угодно называть своим Я. О, нас нисколько не беспокоит то, что нам знакома лишь обёртка пакета со стандартными надписями: отправитель — родители, адресат — могила; бандероль из неизвестности в неизвестность, снабженная различными почтовыми штемпелями — «ценная» или… ну, это уж как решит наше тщеславие.”
― Gustav Meyrink, quote from The Angel of the West Window
“Проклятый страх! С каждым днем его хватка всё крепче. Воистину, будь человек абсолютно свободен от страха — и прежде всего от внутреннего, который изначально таится в нем, — думаю, он бы действительно стал венцом творения и сама преисподняя подчинилась ему.”
― Gustav Meyrink, quote from The Angel of the West Window
“Все мы рабы своих мыслей, но никак не творцы их!”
― Gustav Meyrink, quote from The Angel of the West Window
“Posso dire soltanto che vi sono enti così spaventosi che il solo vederli basta a raggelare il sangue. Ma chi mi comprenderà se ora affermo che ben più terrificante è la loro invisibile vicinanza?”
― Gustav Meyrink, quote from The Angel of the West Window
“Or should I have said that I wanted to die, not in the sense of wanting to throw myself off of that train bridge over there, but more like wanting to be asleep forever because there isn’t any making up for killing women or even watching women get killed, or for that matter killing men and shooting them in the back and shooting them more times than necessary to actually kill them and it was like just trying to kill everything you saw sometimes because it felt like there was acid seeping down into your soul and then your soul is gone and knowing from being taught your whole life that there is no making up for what you are doing, you’re taught that your whole life, but then even your mother is so happy and proud because you lined up your sign posts and made people crumple and they were not getting up ever and yeah they might have been trying to kill you too, so you say, What are you goona do?, but really it doesn’t matter because by the end you failed at the one good thing you could have done, and the one person you promised would live is dead, and you have seen all things die in more manners than you’d like to recall and for a while the whole thing fucking ravaged your spirit like some deep-down shit, man, that you didn’t even realize you had until only the animals made you sad, the husks of dogs filled with explosives and old arty shells and the fucking guts of everything stinking like metal and burning garbage and you walk around and the smell is deep down into you now and you say, How can metal be so on fire? and Where is all this fucking trash coming from? and even back home you’re getting whiffs of it and then that thing you started to notice slipping away is gone and now it’s becoming inverted, like you have bottomed out in your spirit but yet a deeper hole is being dug because everybody is so fucking happy to see you, the murderer, the fucking accomplice, that at-bare-minimum bearer of some fucking responsibility, and everyone wants to slap you on the back and you start to want to burn the whole goddamn country down, you want to burn every yellow ribbon in sight, and you can’t explain it but it’s just, like, Fuck you, but then you signed up to go so it’s your fault, really, because you went on purpose, so you are in the end doubly fucked, so why not just find a spot and curl up and die and let’s make it as painless as possible because you are a coward and, really, cowardice got you into this mess because you wanted to be a man and people made fun of you and pushed you around in the cafeteria and the hallways in high school because you liked to read books and poems sometimes and they’d call you a fag and really deep down you know you went because you wanted to be a man and that’s never gonna happen now and you’re too much of a coward to be a man and get it over with so why not find a clean, dry place and wait it out with it hurting as little as possible and just wait to go to sleep and not wake up and fuck ‘em all.”
― Kevin Powers, quote from The Yellow Birds
“I had to soften him up because, for whatever reason, all the Rock Chicks had an alternate Hot Bunch guy, Indy's was Eddie. Roxie's was Vance. Jules was Luke. Ava's was Lee. Mine was Mace.”
― Kristen Ashley, quote from Rock Chick Reckoning
“This is hard...
Never said it would be easy. Nothing good ever is.' -- Josie & Ash”
― Maya Banks, quote from Burn
“The fantasy I had in my head of how things would turn out was just that; a fantasy. I’d lose everything. I knew that. He’d told me enough times. It wasn’t something I could risk. Not ever. Placing”
― Natasha Preston, quote from Silence
“Saying something is 'too bad' is easy. You say you disapprove, which makes you a nice person, and then you can go about your business and not be interested anymore. It's a lot worse than 'too bad.' It's against everything decent and natural.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Prelude to Foundation
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