“In the year 2025, the best men don't run for president, they run for their lives. . . .”
“He understood well enough how a man with a choice between pride and responsibility will almost always choose pride--if responsibility robs him of his manhood.”
“Outside, daylight was bleeding slowly toward dusk.”
“Say your name over two hundred times and discover you are no one.”
“The apartment was haunted by the ghost of her long departed cabbage.”
“The woman had looked into the abyss and then walked out across it.”
“He removed his unvaluable valuables and dumped his shirt, pants, and skivvies into a letter slot.”
“Then they could discuss the possibilities of social inequity, the way your socks always fall down when you're wearing rubber boots, and the importance of being earnest.”
“Come parole ripetute fino a quando diventano senza senso. Ripetete il vostro nome per più di duecento volte, e scoprirete che non siete nessuno.”
“He had never been a social man. He had shunned causes with contempt and disgust. They were for pig-simple suckers and people with too much time and money on their hands”
“The back of the seat in front of Richards was a revelation in itself. There was a pocket with a safety handbook in it. In case of air turbulence, fasten your belt. If the cabin loses pressure, pull down the air mask directly over your head. In case of engine trouble, the stewardess will give you further instructions. In case of sudden explosive death, hope you have enough dental fillings to insure identification.”
“Valuables. That was a hot one, Richards thought, unbuttoning his shirt. He had an empty wallet with a few pictures of Sheila and Cathy, a receipt for a shoe sole he had replaced at the local cobbler's six months ago, a keyring with no keys on it except for the doorkey, a baby sock that he did not remember putting in there, and the package of Blams he had gotten from the machine.”
“The apartment was haunted by the ghost of long-departed cabbage.”
“He left Molie’s at ten past midnight, twelve hundred New Dollars lighter. The pawnbroker had also sold him a limited but fairly effective disguise: gray hair, spectacles, mouth wadding, plastic buck-teeth which subtly transfigured his lip line. “Give yourself a little limp, too,” Molie advised. “Not a big attention-getter. Just a little one. Remember, you have the power to cloud men’s minds, if you use it. Don’t remember that line, do ya?” Richards didn’t.”
“Sie würden ihm helfen, ihn heilen. Arzneien und Ärzte. Eine Änderung der Einstellung.
Dann Frieden.
Seine Streitsüchtigkeit würde wie Unkraut aus ihm herausgejätet werden.”
“...sie würden Christus persönlich überfallen, um ein Pfund Salami zu ergattern.”
“aber es gab keine Razzien in den Lasterhöhlen mehr. Jedermann wusste, dass Lasterhöhlen jedem wirklich revolutionären Klima abträglich waren.”
“Vielleicht gab es nicht mal einen Regenbogen, geschweige denn einen Topf mit Gold.”
“Es gibt einen Ort in uns, wo es praktisch die ganze Zeit regnet, die Schatten immer lang und der Wald voller Ungeheuer ist.”
“you’ll be given a tape machine which is about the size of a box of popcorn. It weighs six pounds. With it, you’ll be given sixty tape clips which are about four inches long. The equipment will fit inside a coat pocket without a bulge. It’s a triumph of modern technology.”
“-Atención -decía Bobby Thompson-. Éste es uno de los lobos que camina entre ustedes.”
“Sus rostros eran absolutamente similares en un detalle: parecían extremadamente incompletos, como cuadros con agujeros por ojos o como un rompecabezas al que le faltase una pieza nimia. Y eso que echaba en falta, pensó Richards, era el aire de desesperación. En sus estómagos no aullaban los lobos. Sus mentes no estaban llenas de sueños viciados, de esperanzas insensatas.”
“EXPLOSIVE IN MY COAT POCKET—THE VARIETY THEY CALL BLACK IRISH. TWELVE POUNDS IS ENOUGH TO TAKE OUT EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE WITHIN A THIRD OF A MILE AND PROBABLY ENOUGH TO EXPLODE THE JETPORT FUEL STORAGE TANKS. IF YOU DON’T FOLLOW MY INSTRUCTIONS”
“I really wondered why people were always doing what they didn't like doing. It seemed like life was a sort of narrowing tunnel. Right when you were born, the tunnel was huge. You could be anything. Then, like, the absolute second after you were born, the tunnel narrowed down to about half that size. You were a boy, and already it was certain you wouldn't be a mother and it was likely you wouldn't become a manicurist or a kindergarten teacher. Then you started to grow up and everything you did closed the tunnel in some more. You broke your arm climbing a tree and you ruled out being a baseball pitcher. You failed every math test you ever took and you canceled any hope of being a scientist. Like that. On and on through the years until you were stuck. You'd become a baker or a librarian or a bartender. Or an accountant. And there you were. I figured that on the day you died, the tunnel would be so narrow, you'd have squeezed yourself in with so many choices, that you just got squashed.”
“If I kept saying it; if I kept reaching out. My accident really taught me just one thing: the only way to go on is to go on. To say 'I can do this' even when you know you can't.”
“So everything is necessary. Every least thing. This is the hard lesson. Nothing can be dispensed with. Nothing despised. Because the seams are hid from us, you see. The joinery. The way in which the world is made. We have no way to know what could be taken away. What omitted. We have no way to tell what might stand and what might fall.”
“Why, I’m just as true and honest as dirt. And I’m even more charming than dirt.”
“... History's like that. There are wars, and unfortunately, in the end, who wins and who loses is more important than who's right or wrong.”
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