Quotes from The Bonfire of the Vanities

“Sherman made the terrible discovery that men make about their fathers sooner or later... that the man before him was not an aging father but a boy, a boy much like himself, a boy who grew up and had a child of his own and, as best he could, out of a sense of duty and, perhaps love, adopted a role called Being a Father so that his child would have something mythical and infinitely important: a Protector, who would keep a lid on all the chaotic and catastrophic possibilities of life. ~Tom Wolfe”
― Tom Wolfe, quote from The Bonfire of the Vanities

“Sir Gerald Moore: I was at dinner last evening, and halfway through the pudding, this four-year-old child came alone, dragging a little toy cart. And on the cart was a fresh turd. Her own, I suppose. The parents just shook their heads and smiled. I've made a big investment in you, Peter. Time and money, and it's not working. Now, I could just shake my head and smile. But in my house, when a turd appears, we throw it out. We dispose of it. We flush it away. We don't put it on the table and call it caviar.”
― Tom Wolfe, quote from The Bonfire of the Vanities

“Like more than one Englishman in New York, he looked upon Americans as hopeless children whom Providence had perversely provided with this great swollen fat fowl of a continent. Any way one chose to relieve them of their riches, short of violence, was sporting, if not morally justifiable, since they would only squander it in some tasteless and useless fashion, in any event.”
― Tom Wolfe, quote from The Bonfire of the Vanities

“[H]e could see the island of Manhattan off to the left. The towers were jammed together so tightly, he could feel the mass and stupendous weight.Just think of the millions, from all over the globe, who yearned to be on that island, in those towers, in those narrow streets! There it was, the Rome, the Paris, the London of the twentieth century, the city of ambition, the dense magnetic rock, the irresistible destination of all those who insist on being where things are happening-and he was among the victors!”
― Tom Wolfe, quote from The Bonfire of the Vanities

“A liberal is a conservative who has been arrested.”
― Tom Wolfe, quote from The Bonfire of the Vanities

“The Yanks always wore neckties that leapt out in front of their shirts, as if to announce the awkwardness to follow.”
― Tom Wolfe, quote from The Bonfire of the Vanities

“How very American it was to assume that these unsmiling Chinese would be pleased if one showed a preference for their native implements...How very American it was to feel somehow guilty unless one struggled over rice noodles and lumps of meat with things that looked like enlarged knitting needles.”
― Tom Wolfe, quote from The Bonfire of the Vanities

“Vulgar, but not as vulgar as Louis Vuitton, thought Sherman.”
― Tom Wolfe, quote from The Bonfire of the Vanities

“In this little room full of people he was suffering the pangs of men whose egos lose their virginity—as happens when they overhear for the first time a beautiful woman’s undiluted, full-strength opinion of their masculine selves.”
― Tom Wolfe, quote from The Bonfire of the Vanities

“Your self…is other people, all the people you're tied to, and it's only a thread.”
― Tom Wolfe, quote from The Bonfire of the Vanities

“Like most men, Sherman was innocent of the routine salutatory techniques of the fashionable hostesses. For at least forty-five seconds every guest was the closest, dearest, jolliest, most wittily conspiratorial friend a girl ever had. Every male guest she touched on the arm (any other part of the body presented problems) and applied a little heartfelt pressure. Every guest, male or female, she looked at with a radar lock upon the eyes, as if captivated (by the brilliance, the wit, the beauty, and the incomparable memories).”
― Tom Wolfe, quote from The Bonfire of the Vanities

“His genius had only begun to flower. This was only journalism, after all, a cup of tea on the way to his eventual triumph as a novelist. ”
― Tom Wolfe, quote from The Bonfire of the Vanities

“Then it dawned on Kramer. The cops weren’t all that much different from the assistant D.A.s. It was the muck factor. The cops got tired of packing blacks and Latins off to jail all day, too. It was even worse for them, because they had to dive deeper into the muck to do it. The only thing that made it constructive was the idea that they were doing it for somebody—for the decent people. So they opened their eyes, and now they were attuned to all the good people with colored skin…who rose to the top…during all this relentless stirring of the muck… You couldn’t exactly call it enlightenment, thought Kramer, but it was a fucking start.”
― Tom Wolfe, quote from The Bonfire of the Vanities

“Sai la favola del pipistrello?
Gli uccelli e le bestie erano in guerra. Quando stavano vincendo gli uccelli, il pipistrello diceva di essere un uccello, perché sapeva volare. Quando vincevano le bestie, il pipistrello diceva di essere una bestia, perché aveva i denti.
Per questo il pipistrello non si fa vedere di giorno. Nessuno vuole guardare le sue due facce. (Pag. 614, "Il falò delle vanità")”
― Tom Wolfe, quote from The Bonfire of the Vanities

“She was wearing a skirt and a big-shouldered jacket of a royal blue that was fashionable in France, a blue-and-white-striped silk blouse, and electric-blue lizard pumps with white calf caps on the toes.”
― Tom Wolfe, quote from The Bonfire of the Vanities

“He had the gaunt and haunted athletic look of those who stare daily down the bony gullet of the great god Aerobics.”
― Tom Wolfe, quote from The Bonfire of the Vanities

“and in that moment, Sherman made the terrible discovery that men make about their fathers sooner or later. For the first time he realized that the man before him was not an aging father but a boy, a boy much like himself, a boy who grew up and had a child of his own and, as best as he could, out of a sense of duty and, perhaps, love, adopted a role called being a father so that his child would have something mythical and infinitely important: a Protector, who would keep a lid on all the chaotic and catastrophic possibilities of life. And now that boy, that good actor, had grown old and fragile and tired, wearier than ever at the thought of trying to hoist the Protector's armor back onto his shoulders again, now, so far down the line.”
― Tom Wolfe, quote from The Bonfire of the Vanities

“The only thing that had truly stuck in Sherman's mind about Christopher Marlowe, after nine years at Buckley, four years at St. Paul's, and four years at Yale, was that you were, in fact, supposed to know who Christopher Marlowe was.”
― Tom Wolfe, quote from The Bonfire of the Vanities

“No wonder marriages used to hold up better. Sherman's parents and their friends had all had plenty of servants, and the servants had worked long hours and lived in. If you were unwilling to argue in front of the servants, then there wasn't much opportunity to argue at all.”
― Tom Wolfe, quote from The Bonfire of the Vanities

“How the stories circulated on every campus! If you weren’t making $250,000 a year within five years, than you were either grossly stupid or grossly lazy. That was the word. By age 30, $500,000–and that sum had the taint of the mediocre. By age forty you were either making a million a year or you were timid and incompetent. Make it now! That motto burned in every heart, like myocarditis.”
― Tom Wolfe, quote from The Bonfire of the Vanities

“Something hits the Mayor on the shoulder. It hurts like hell! There on the floor-a jar of mayonnaise, an eight-ounce jar of Hellmann's mayonnaise. Half full! Half consumed! Somebody has thrown a half-eaten jar of Hellmann's mayonnaise at him! In that instant
the most insignificant thing takes over his mind. Who in the name of God would bring a half-eaten eight-ounce jar of Hellmann's mayonnaise to a public meeting?”
― Tom Wolfe, quote from The Bonfire of the Vanities

“Кретин в разрисованных кроссовках, который с перепугу рвёт стометровку за 8,4 секунды.”
― Tom Wolfe, quote from The Bonfire of the Vanities

“Сидит и медленно вращает из стороны в сторону головой, как газонный опрыскиватель.”
― Tom Wolfe, quote from The Bonfire of the Vanities

“Haben Sie schon mal mit einem logisch denkenden Verrückten gesprochen? Die sind viel schlimmer als simple Verrückte.”
― Tom Wolfe, quote from The Bonfire of the Vanities

“Thank God in heaven! What a relief! They could let their breaths out now. Miss Efficiency was a bigot. These days the thing about bigotry was, it was undignified. It was a sign of Low Rent origins, of inferior social status, of poor taste. So they were the superiors of their English baby nurse, after all. What a fucking relief.”
― Tom Wolfe, quote from The Bonfire of the Vanities

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Popular quotes

“Every time I open my mouth to say what I'm feeling, something stops me and I have to make sure I'm not going to say anything stupid. It makes me crazy. And then, once I've figured out what I'm going to say, I have to go over it, over and over again, just to see if what I'm feeling is right. And then I have to figure out how to say it.”
― Brent Runyon, quote from The Burn Journals

“De ce-s cu toții așa de grosolani?Și sînt grosolani,subliniat grosolani ,chiar în clipele cînd nu au voie să fie grosolani,când omul,după beție,are toți nervii revărsați,când e descurajat și blând!De ce așa?O,dacă întreaga lume,dacă fiecare din lumea asta ar fi nesigur de sine și s-ar îndoi de temeinicia locului său sub soare- ce bine ar fi!N-ar mai exista nici entuziaști,nici fapte eroice,nici obsesii!Toți ar fi descurajați.Aș accepta să trăiesc pe pământ și o veșnicie,dacă mai înainte mi s-ar arăta un ungher unde nu întodeauna este loc pentru fapte eroice.”
― Venedikt Erofeev, quote from Moscow to the End of the Line

“I know it, and I wanted so much not to drag you into it!’ said Kitty remorsefully. ‘I thought, if only you knew nothing about it, it would serve as a reason for you to put an end to our engagement!’
‘Yes, I know you did. Told me so, in that letter you wrote me. Dashed cork-brained notion! Stands to reason if you’re in it I must be too.”
― Georgette Heyer, quote from Cotillion

“What do you see when you look at me?”
“I see you,” he answered as if it was obvious. “It’s not like I see a place, or a time, or a name: just you. Your essence. Your soul. That’s how I find you every time you come back. I know it’s hard to understand, but your soul calls me…and I’m drawn to it. I couldn’t keep away if I tried.”
Sage raised his hand to my cheek, cupping it gently. I closed my eyes, resting against the warmth of his palm. When I opened them he had moved closer.
I closed the distance between us and kissed him.
I felt dizzy and hot and floaty, like every cliché…but it was true. I couldn’t feel my feet. I finally felt like I was where my soul belonged.
There was only one problem. The gearshift was digging into my side.
“Ow!” I winced.
“You okay?”
“Yeah…it’s just…” I gestured down, feeling like an idiot for ruining the moment.
Sage didn’t seem to mind. He reached down and moved his seat back to its maximum leg room, then held out his hand. I grabbed it and clambered over the center console, clumsily ducking and folding myself until I finally settled onto his lap, straddling his legs. It was the least coordinated act of seduction ever.
“Better?” he asked.
“Better.”
He kissed me, sliding his hands up the back of my shirt. It felt incredible. Without breaking away from his lips, I reached underneath his tee and felt his bare, sleek chest. My breath came faster, caught up in the frenzy of finally letting go and doing what I’d been dying to do from the second I’d seen Sage on the beach.
“Wait,” he said.
He reached down and pulled a lever. I let out a little scream as his seat back dropped all the way and I fell on top of him. I loved the feel of his body under mine. I didn’t want a single part of us not touching.
“Better now?” Sage murmured into my ear. It wasn’t fair of him to ask me a question when he was doing that. I could barely function, never mind put together an answer.
“Much better,” I said. “It’s practically a bed.”
“Is it?” Sage agreed, and in his eyes I saw exactly what that could mean.
“Oh,” I said, suddenly nervous. “But…we can’t. I mean, we don’t have…”
“I do,” he said, leaning down to kiss the hollow where my neck met my shoulder.
“You do?”
I tensed up. Why did he have one? For who?
The corner of Sage’s mouth turned up. “For us, Clea. The drugstore in Rio? I kind of had a feeling…”
He moved his lips back to my neck. He nibbled on my earlobe, and I whimpered.
“Oh,” I managed. “Well…then…”
“I love you, Clea.”
Everything tunneled in, and I heard the words echo in my head. Sage loved me. Me. I didn’t even realize I’d stopped breathing until he said my name, concerned.
“Clea?”
I looked at him and immediately relaxed.
“I love you, too.”
We kissed, and I actually felt myself melting into him as my last coherent thoughts gave way to pure sensation.”
― Hilary Duff, quote from Elixir

“Love is never guaranteed. Love is a risk we take because we hope it will make us happy.”
― Susane Colasanti, quote from Keep Holding On

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