“Like many young men in the South, he had trouble ruling out the possible. They are not like an immigrant's son in Passaic who desires to become a dentist and that is that. Southerners have trouble ruling out the possible. What happens to a... man to whom all things seem possible and every course of action open? Nothing of course.”
― Walker Percy, quote from The Last Gentleman
“Christ should leave us. He is too much with us and I don’t like his friends. We have no hope of recovering Christ until Christ leaves us. There is after all something worse than being God-forsaken. It is when God overstays his welcome and takes up with the wrong people.”
― Walker Percy, quote from The Last Gentleman
“But if there's nothing wrong with me, he thought, then there is something wrong with the world. And if there is nothing wrong with the world, then I have wasted my life and that is the worst mistake of all.”
― Walker Percy, quote from The Last Gentleman
“The happiness of the South was very formidable. It was an almost invincible happiness. It defied you to call it anything else. Everyone was in fact happy. The women were beautiful and charming. The men were healthy and successful and funny; they knew how to tell stories. They had everything the North had and more. They had a history, they had a place redolent with memories, they had good conversation, they believed in God and defended the Constitution, and they were getting rich in the bargain. They had the best of victory and defeat. Their happiness was aggressive and irresistible.”
― Walker Percy, quote from The Last Gentleman
“For example, she did not mind at all if Christendom should be done for, stove in, kaput, screwed up once and all. She did not mind that the Christers were like everybody else, if not worse.”
― Walker Percy, quote from The Last Gentleman
Walker Percy
Born place: in Birmingham, Alabama, The United States
Born date May 28, 1916
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“The air grew colder and thinner as they rode through the mountain passes. The sun was high and bright, but Martise wrapped her shawl tightly around her and pressed against Silhara’s back. Gnat kept a steady pace, breathing harder in the thin air. Unlike him, the mountain ponies suffered no effects from the rising elevation and clipped ahead at a swift pace. Patches of snow spilled from embankments onto the rutted paths. A brisk wind moaned a soft dirge as it whipped through the towering evergreens cloaking the mountainside.
Silhara called a sudden halt. Martise peered around his arm, expecting to see some obstacle in their path. The way was clear, with only the Kurmans watching them curiously.
“What’s wrong?”
“You’re quaking hard enough to make my teeth rattle.” He moved his leg back and untied one of the packs strapped to the saddle. “Get down.”
She slid off Gnat’s back. Silhara followed and pulled one of their blankets from the packet. “Here. Wrap this around you.” She had only pulled the blanket over her shoulders when he picked her up and tossed her onto Gnat’s back once more, this time in the front of the flat saddle. She clutched the horse’s mane with one hand and held on to her blanket with the other. Silhara vaulted up behind her, scooted her back against him and took up the reins.
“Better,” he said and whistled to the waiting Kurmans he was ready. Martise couldn’t agree more. The blanket’s warmth and Silhara’s body heat soaked through her clothing and into her bones. She leaned into his chest. “This is nice.”
An amused rumble vibrated near her ear. “So glad you approve.” His hand slipped under the blanket, wandered over her belly and cupped her breast. Martise sucked in a breath as his fingers teased her nipple through her shawl and tunic. The heat surrounding her turned scorching. “I agree,” he murmured in her ear. “This is nice.”
He stopped his teasing when she squirmed hard enough in the saddle to nearly unseat them both, but left his hand on her breast, content to just hold her. Martise was ready to toss off the blanket and her shawl. Silhara’s touch had left her with a throbbing ache between her thighs. She smiled a little at the feel of him hard against her back. She wasn’t the only one affected by his teasing.”
― Grace Draven, quote from Master of Crows
“The hours slipped by, and the men and the girls talked and talked as only communists of that wild and irresponsible period could talk when they were omong themselves. They were as preoccupied with their own importance and their revolutionairy tasks as children are with new and engrossing toys. I listened as if under a spell. After all, compared with the tight-lipped conspirators of a later decade, we were like children partaking of a heavy wine.”
― Jan Valtin, quote from Out of the Night: The Memoir of Richard Julius Herman Krebs alias Jan Valtin
“Richter said, ‘Like a morning dream, life becomes more and more bright the longer we live, and the reason of everything appears more clear. What has puzzled us before seems less mysterious, and the crooked paths look straighter as we approach the end.’ ”
― Og Mandino, quote from The Greatest Miracle in the World
“When people in authority want the rest of us to behave, it matters—first and foremost—how they behave. This is called the “principle of legitimacy,” and legitimacy is based on three things. First of all, the people who are asked to obey authority have to feel like they have a voice—that if they speak up, they will be heard. Second, the law has to be predictable. There has to be a reasonable expectation that the rules tomorrow are going to be roughly the same as the rules today. And third, the authority has to be fair. It can’t treat one group differently from another. All good parents understand these three principles implicitly. If you want to stop little Johnnie from hitting his sister, you can’t look away one time and scream at him another. You can’t treat his sister differently when she hits him. And if he says he really didn’t hit his sister, you have to give him a chance to explain himself. How you punish is as important as the act of punishing itself.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, quote from David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants (Audio CD)
“Love is only a word, until we decide to let it possess us with all its force.
Love is only a word, until someone arrives to give it meaning.
Don't give up. Remember, it's always the last key on the key ring that opens the door.”
― Paulo Coelho, quote from Akras manuskripts
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