Reif Larsen · 375 pages
Rating: (7.4K votes)
“Outside, there was that predawn kind of clarity, where the momentum of living has not quite captured the day. The air was not filled with conversation or thought bubbles or laughter or sidelong glances. Everyone was sleeping, all of their ideas and hopes and hidden agendas entangled in the dream world, leaving this world clear and crisp and cold as a bottle of milk in the fridge. ”
― Reif Larsen, quote from The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet
“I had trouble listening to adults who didn't really mean anything that they said; it was as if their language poured into my ears only to drain right out a little spigot in the back of my head.”
― Reif Larsen, quote from The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet
“A map does not just chart, it unlocks and formulates meaning; it forms bridges between here and there, between disparate ideas that we did not know were previously connected.”
― Reif Larsen, quote from The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet
“I would not know what to say to you, except this: there was never a map that got it all right, and truth and beauty were never married to one another for long.”
― Reif Larsen, quote from The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet
“Do you ever get the feeling like you already know the entire contents of the universe somewhere inside of your head, as if you were born with a complete map of this world already grafted onto the folds of your cerebellum and you are just spending your entire life figuring out how to access this map?”
― Reif Larsen, quote from The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet
“Adults were pack rats of old, useless emotions.”
― Reif Larsen, quote from The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet
“Dr. Clair looked at Layton. The mancala pieces were still in her hand.
If Angela Ashforth ever says anything like that to you again, you tell her that just because she's insecure about being a little girl in a society that puts an inordinate amount of pressure on little girls to live up to certain physical, emotional and ideological standards -- many of which are improper, unhealthy and self-perpetuating -- doesn't mean she has to take her misplaced self-loathing out on a nice boy like you. You may be inherently a part of the problem but that doesn't mean you aren't a nice boy with nice manners and it certainly doesn't mean you have AIDS."
I'm not sure I can remember all that," Layton said.
Well then, tell Angela that her mother is a white trash drunk from Butte.”
― Reif Larsen, quote from The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet
“I do love the sound of ripping corn husks. The violence of the noise, the sustained popping and shoring of the silky organic threads, made me think of someone tearing up an expensive and potentially Italian set of trousers in a fit of madness that this person just might regret later. ”
― Reif Larsen, quote from The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet
“I was only twelve, but through the slow, inevitable burn of a thousand sunrises and sunsets, a thousand maps traced and retraced, I had already absorbed the valuable precept that everything crumbled into itself eventually, and to cultivate a crankiness about this was just a waste of time.”
― Reif Larsen, quote from The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet
“Did the true, umbilical love that bound people together for the length of their lives require a certain intellectual dislocution in order to push past our insistent rationalization and enter the rough, uneven space inside our hearts?”
― Reif Larsen, quote from The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet
“I suddenly missed the curious shelving patterns of my room, those old planks from the barn groaning under the weight of the notebooks. Shelving is an intimate thing, like the fingerprint of a room.”
― Reif Larsen, quote from The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet
“Изведнъж се замислих как възрастните можеха да задържат чувствата си дълго след като събитието е отминало, много след като са изпратили писмо с извинения и всички останали са продължили нататък. Възрастните бяха събирачи на стари ненужни чувства.”
― Reif Larsen, quote from The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet
“What happened to all the historical detritus in the world? Some of it made it into drawers of museums, okay, but what about all those old postcards, the photoplates, the maps on napkins, the private journals with little latches on them? Did they burn in house fires? Were they sold at yard sales for 75¢? Or did they all just crumble into themselves like everything else in this world, the secret little stories contained within their pages disappearing, disappearing, and now gone forever.”
― Reif Larsen, quote from The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet
“The sun was crouched on its haunches over the Pioneers. The mountains were both purple and brown, the angle of light hitting the moiré of pine and fir and bleeding out a smoky mirage that made the valley seem to tremble. It was a sight. We both looked.”
― Reif Larsen, quote from The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet
“One cannot spend one's entire life running into bathrooms when danger calls!”
― Reif Larsen, quote from The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet
“A novel is a tricky thing to map.”
― Reif Larsen, quote from The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet
“A text is evolutionary by its very nature.”
― Reif Larsen, quote from The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet
“. . . the mountains sighed with the weight of the heavens on their backs.”
― Reif Larsen, quote from The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet
“Whenever I smelled the same perfume on other women, no matter where I was, I was instantly transported back to that feeling of discovery. The sensation of fingertips against old paper, whose surface was powdery and fragile, like the membrane of a moth’s wing.”
― Reif Larsen, quote from The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet
“Доктор Клер беше от майките, които ще те научат на Менделеевата таблица, докато тикат лъжица с каша в бебешката ти уста, но - в ерата на глобалния тероризъм и отвличания на деца - няма да попитат кой те търси по телефона.”
― Reif Larsen, quote from The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet
“Навън ме посрещна обичайната за миговете преди зазоряване кристална чистота, когато инерцията на живота все още не е завладяла деня. Въздухът не беше изпълнен с разговори, мисли, смях и намръщени погледи. Хората спяха и всичките им идеи, надежди и тайни помисли бяха омотани в света на сънищата, а този тук беше останал чист, свеж и хладен като бутилка мляко от хладилника.”
― Reif Larsen, quote from The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet
“Колко много снимки в целия свят запечатваха последвалия миг, не успявах да уловят онова, предизвикало фотографа да натисне копчето, а вместо това хващаха последвалите руини, смеха, реакцията, разплискалите се кръгове във водата.”
― Reif Larsen, quote from The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet
“Doodles were fertile ground; they were the visual evidence of heavy cognitive lifting. Although this was not always true: Ricky Lepardo was a doodler and he was not a heavy cognitive lifter.”
― Reif Larsen, quote from The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet
“I suppose he represented the worst of what rural life can do to a man: he was racist, uneducated, and badly in need of dental work.”
― Reif Larsen, quote from The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet
“Може би смисълът на четенето на романи се криеше именно в балансирането на насладата от бягството от реалността със съзнанието за измислица, но аз така и не успявах да поддържам едновременно реалното и фантазното. Може би просто трябваше да си възрастен, за да осъществиш този изумително сложен акт на едновременно вярване и невярване.”
― Reif Larsen, quote from The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet
Reif Larsen
Born place: Cambridge. MA, The United States
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“After three glasses, Cynthia flung the windows open and announced, “Zac Efron, I love you!” to the whole of Chelsea, while Lesley was crouched head down over the lavatory bowl throwing up, Maggie had made Sarah a declaration of love (“you’re sho, sho beautiful, marry me!”), and Sarah was shedding floods of tears without knowing why. It hit me worst of all. I had jumped on Cynthia’s bed and was bawling out “Breaking Free” in an endless loop. When Cynthia’s father came into the room, I’d held Cynthia’s hairbrush up to him like a microphone and called out, “Sing alone, baldie! Get those hips swinging!” Although the next day I couldn’t even being to explain why myself.
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“Indeed, grief is not the clear melancholy the young believe it. It is like a siege in a tropical city. The skin dries and the throat parches as though one were living in the heat of the desert; water and wine taste warm in the mouth, and food is of the substance of the sand; one snarls at one's company; thoughts prick one through sleep like mosquitoes.”
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