“Hope had stolen into his life just as he was growing comfortable with despair.”
― David Leavitt, quote from The Lost Language of Cranes
“Cautiously his foot explored, wiggled as it could, and finally felt warm flesh under the pants leg.”
― David Leavitt, quote from The Lost Language of Cranes
“Sometimes I think you are doomed to happiness”
― David Leavitt, quote from The Lost Language of Cranes
“She looked toward the window, smiling away her life”
― David Leavitt, quote from The Lost Language of Cranes
“Philip understood that there were people in the world like Eliot for whom love and sex came easy, without active solicitation, like a strong wind to which they had only to turn their faces and it would blow over them. He also understood that he was not one of those people. Instead, he seemed always to be eking out signals, interpreting glances, trying to extract some knowledge of another person's feelings from the most trivial conversations. Nothing came easy for him, and more often than not, nothing came of any of his efforts.”
― David Leavitt, quote from The Lost Language of Cranes
David Leavitt
Born place: in Pittsburgh, The United States
Born date June 23, 1961
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“To the Jews who wanted a land of their own, where they could organise themselves and live according to their traditions, Stalin had offered a bleak territory in Eastern Siberia: Birobidzhan. Take it or leave it. Anyone who wanted to live as a Jew should go to Siberia; if anyone refused Siberia, that meant he preferred to be Russian. There was no third way. But if a Jew wanted to be Russian, what can, what should he do, if the Russians deny him access to the university, and call him a zhid, and turn the pogromists on him, and form an alliance with Hitler? He can't do anything- especially if he's a woman.”
― Primo Levi, quote from If Not Now, When?
“III. Buddhism The Man Who Woke Up Buddhism begins with a man. In his later years, when India was afire with his message and kings themselves were bowing before him, people came to him even as they were to come to Jesus asking what he was.1 How many people have provoked this question—not “Who are you?” with respect to name, origin, or ancestry, but “What are you? What order of being do you belong to? What species do you represent?” Not Caesar, certainly. Not Napoleon, or even Socrates. Only two: Jesus and Buddha. When the people carried their puzzlement to the Buddha himself, the answer he gave provided an identity for his entire message. “Are you a god?” they asked. “No.” “An angel?” “No.” “A saint?” “No.” “Then what are you?” Buddha answered, “I am awake.” His answer became his title, for this is what Buddha means. The Sanskrit root budh denotes both to wake up and to know. Buddha, then, means the “Enlightened One,” or the “Awakened One.” While the rest of the world was wrapped in the womb of sleep, dreaming a dream known as the waking state of human life, one of their number roused himself. Buddhism begins with a man who shook off the daze, the doze, the dream-like vagaries of ordinary awareness. It begins with a man who woke up. His”
― Huston Smith, quote from The World's Religions: Our Great Wisdom Traditions
“Le he pedido a Bill que me lo explicara y él me ha hablado del crecimiento demográfico y la Iglesia católica y la lluvia ácida y la destrucción de los bosques tropicales para conseguir más comida. Todo el mundo discute sobre el tema, me ha dicho. Los economistas y hombres de negocios dicen que nada va mal. Los ecologistas y expertos en población dicen que se acerca el final. Mientras discuten, las cosas seguirán con la misma tendencia hasta que lleguemos al punto sin retorno, que será en algún momento de los próximos cien años. A partir de entonces, no habrá más espacio al aire libre porque cada centímetro cuadrado de tierra será necesario para producir comida.”
― Sheri S. Tepper, quote from Beauty
“It is one of the major tragedies that nothing is more discomforting than the hearty affection of the Old Friends who never were friends.”
― Sinclair Lewis, quote from Arrowsmith
“And you, a king’s daughter, who willingly gave herself to me—who brought me to her bed? Are you so high and pure?” She”
― Tad Williams, quote from To Green Angel Tower, Part 1
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