“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
“Dianzi, ne l’alba che procede al giorno,
quando l’anima tua dentro dormia”
― Dante Alighieri, quote from Purgatorio
“Los pueblos originarios siempre viven dosificadamente de algo que los blancos luego despilfarran. Una vez que lo han despilfarrado, se frotan los ojos y quieren protegerlo. Entonces lo protegen de aquellos de quienes nunca fue necesario protegerlo, y presumen de ello.”
― Frank Schätzing, quote from The Swarm
“you threw a stone into a gutter it would only spurt filth in your face.”
― R.K. Narayan, quote from Malgudi Days
“After a moment, he shook his head. “Quickly and mercifully is best. Clay? Go out and ask her into the alley.”
Clay looked at Jeremy as if he’d just been told to dance the rumba on a public thoroughfare.
I bit back a laugh. “Just walk over to her and point at the alley. Maybe say…I don’t know…something like ‘fifty bucks.’ ” I looked at Jeremy. “Does that sound right? Fifty?”
His brows shot up. “Why are you asking me?”
“I wasn’t—I just meant, as a general…” I threw up my hands. “How am I supposed to know how much a hooker costs?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
I sighed. “Fine, fifty bucks sounds good. It’s not like she knows what the going rate is anyway. Just say
that and nod at the alley. She’ll follow.”
Clay continued to stare at us in silent horror.
“Oh, for God’s sake, you’re ready to break her neck but you can’t—”
“I’ll do it,” Jeremy said, then shot a look my way. “Not that I have any more experience soliciting prostitutes than Clay does.”
“Never crossed my mind.”
A mock glare, then he headed out.”
― Kelley Armstrong, quote from Broken
“He had destroyed her, so why couldn't she destroy him in return?”
― Linda Howard, quote from Cry No More
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