Christopher Moore · 304 pages
Rating: (28.7K votes)
“I think I'm what they call a never-was.”
“I think there was always some scrawny dreamer sitting at the edge of the firelight, who had the ability to imagine dangers, to look into the future in his imagination and see possibilities, and therefore survived to pass his genes on to the next generation. ”
“Scratch a cynic and you will find a disappointed romantic.”
“If they'd been dogs, they would have all been in the yard eating grass and trying to yak up whatever was making them feel so lousy. Not a bone gnawed, not a ball chased-all tails went unwagged. Oh, life is a fast cat, a short leash, a flea in that place where you just can't scratch.”
“Everyone thinks that it was the big strong caveman who got the girl, and for the most part, that may have been true, but physical strength doesn't explain how our species created civilization. I think there was always some scrawny dreamer sitting at the edge of the firelight, who had the ability to imagine dangers, to look into the future in his imagination and see possibilities, and therefore survived to pass his genes on to the next generation. When the big ape men ended up running off the cliff or getting killed while trying to beat a mastodon into submission with a stick, the dreamer was standing back thinking 'Hey, that might work, but you need to run the mastodon off the cliff.' And, then he'd mate with the women left over after the go-getters got killed.”
“On the radio, turned low, Reba sang of hard times with the full authority of a cross-eyed redheaded millionaire.”
“Theophilus Crowe wrote bad free-verse poetry and played a jimbai drum while sitting on a rock by the ocean. He could play sixteen chords on the guitar and knew five Bob Dylan songs all the way through, allowing for a dampening buzz any time he had to play a bar chord. He had tried his hand at painting, sculpture, and pottery and had even played a minor part in the Pine Cove Little Theater’s revival of Arsenic and Old Lace. In all of these endeavors, he had experienced a meteoric rise to mediocrity and quit before total embarrassment and self-loathing set in. Theo was cursed with an artist’s soul but no talent. He possessed the angst and the inspiration, but not the means to create.”
“What’s a Mennonite?” Vance asked. “Amish with blenders.”
“A Bluesman hates to be told what to do. Authority rankles him, inspires his rebellion, and plays to his need to self-destruct. A Bluesman doesn't take to having a boss unless he's on a chain gang (for the chain gang boss ranks below only a mean old woman and a sweet young thing in the hierarchy of the Blues Muse, followed closely by bad liquor, a dead dog, and the Man).”
“The visual conjured in Val's mind - all that parched, wrinkled flesh in furious friction - culminated in flames, as if some giant cosmic Boy Scout had decided to rub two old people together to make a fire.”
“Задименият бар бе изпълнен с блус и с хора, които се наливаха с алкохол, за да прогонят тъгата.
Ако бяха кучета, до един щяха да бъдат навин, да се тъпчат с трева и да се мъчат да повърнат онова, което ги кара да се чувстват толкова зле.”
“Естел се беше зарекла, че повече нито един мъж няма да я види гола.
Навремето компромисът й се струваше разумен - отричане от малкото плътски удоволствия в полза на консумиране на сладкищи, които бяха в изобилие, пък и не я караха да се чувства сякаш е изневерила на паметта на Джо.
Сега, след като беше нарушила клетвата си и лежеше на пухената постеля до този потен кльощав старик, който с език докосваше върното й (и явно не се смущаваше, че въпросното зърно се намира на гърда, клоняща към подмишницата на Естел, вместо да стърчи като купола на Тадж Махал), тя си даде сметка, че най-сетне е разкодирала загадъчната усмивка на Мона Лиза. Мона хем се е чукала, хем си е похапвала сладкиши.”
“But Diablo had been built on a breakneck schedule during the energy scare of the seventies. The welders worked double and”
“It was a truism to people active in the gay movement that the greatest impediments to homosexuals’ progress often were not heterosexual bigots but closeted homosexuals.”
“Platoons and plays and stores and congresses do not end - they simply move on to a different dimension.”
“It's like thinking you're going to heaven, but when you get there it turns out to be Cleveland.”
“I know I have to do the right thing. And the sooner you do the right thing, the better. You get it over with, and you don't have to worry about it anymore. But who does that in real life? Instead, you procrastinate and think about it and put it off and think about it some more until that one little pebble grows into a giant block inside your head.”
“A little thing, lasting only a second, and the odds were a thousand to one that I might have had my eyes on my cards at the time and missed it. But I didn't, and, in a flash, the air seemed to clear. Some shadow lifted from my brain, and I was looking at the three men with full and absolute recognition.”
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