“Alcoholism is a disease,” she said. “Like athlete’s foot. Or herpes. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Luker and I have lots of friends who are alcoholics. And speed freaks too.” “Well,”
― Michael McDowell, quote from The Elementals
“To have a family is real strange,” said India thoughtfully. “All these people you wouldn’t have anything to do with except that they’re related to you.”
― Michael McDowell, quote from The Elementals
“She’s got manners, but what has she got in the way of morals?” “Oh,” said Luker blithely, “she and I don’t have any morals. We have to get along with a scruple or two.” “I”
― Michael McDowell, quote from The Elementals
“You know what you should have done, added Luker, you should have ripped his balls off and stapled them to the back of his throat.”
― Michael McDowell, quote from The Elementals
“It’s bad when the dead talk in dreams,” said Odessa.”
― Michael McDowell, quote from The Elementals
“Daylight had not brought a solution, but it had accorded indifference. Having”
― Michael McDowell, quote from The Elementals
“Ennen vanhaan vain kirkko oli ihmisten mahtava tuomari, ja jokainen tiesi olevansa syntinen. Nyt pitää syntisen tuomita toinen syntinen, jotta kaikki arvot eivät rappeutuisi anarkiaksi, eikä veli enää voi vain itkeä veljen kanssa, vaan hänen on sanottava tälle: "Olet tehnyt väärin." Ja jos ennen vain pappismiehen asu erottui muista jotenkin epäinhimillisenä, ja jopa univormussa ja virkapuvussakin oli silloin vielä jotakin siviilimäistä, niin sittemmin, kun uskon suuri suvaitsemattomuus oli mennyttä, piti maallisen virka-asu nostaa taivaallisen sijaan ja yhteiskunnan piti jakautua maallisiin hierarkioihin ja univormuihin ja kohottaa absoluuttisuuteen uskon sijasta. Ja koska romantiikkaa aina on juuri se että maallinen kohotetaan absoluuttiseksi, niin tämän aikakauden varsinaista aitoa romantiikkaa on univormuromantiikka, ikään kuin olisi olemassa ylimaallinen ja yliajallinen univormun aate, jota ei ole ja joka silti on niin voimallinen että se saa ihmisen valtaansa paljon voimakkaammin kuin mikään maallinen ammatti tai kutsumus konsanaan, se on ei-olemassaoleva ja silti niin voimakas aate, että se tekee univormunkantajasta univormun riivaamaan, vaikka hän ei koskaan ole ammatti-ihminen siviilien tarkoittamassa mielessä; ja näin on koska univormun kantaja syvästi tiedostaa että juuri hän parhaiten edustaa oman aikansa varsinaista elämänmuotoa ja siten myös turvaa oman elämänsä.”
― Hermann Broch, quote from The Sleepwalkers
“Among the many things that religious tradition holds in store for us is a legacy of wonder. The surest way to suppress our ability to understand the meaning of God and the importance of worship is to take things for granted. Indifference to the sublime wonder of living is the root of sin.”
― Abraham Joshua Heschel, quote from God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism
“The condition of alienation, of being asleep, of being unconscious, of being out of one’s mind, is the condition of the normal man. Society highly values its normal man. It educates children to lose themselves and to become absurd, and thus to be normal. Normal men have killed perhaps 100,000,000 of their fellow normal men in the last fifty years.” The question still hangs heavy in the air: If our behavior is not making us happy, why do we act this way?”
― Derrick Jensen, quote from A Language Older Than Words
“...I am forever loving, forever waiting, forever yearning... forever yours.”
― Charlotte Featherstone, quote from Addicted
“want revenge. I want power. I want money. I want to be loved and not love in return.”
― Fay Weldon, quote from The Life and Loves of a She Devil
BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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