“When I went into the Army, I made up my mind that I was putting myself at the Army's disposal. I believe in the war. That doesn't mean I believe in the Army. I don't believe in any army. You don't expect justice out of an army, if you're a sensible, grown-up human being, you only expect victory. And if it comes to that, our Army is probably the most just one that ever existed. . . . I expected the Army to be corrupt, inefficient, cruel, wasteful, and it turned out to be all those things, just like all armies, only much less so than I thought before I got into it. It is much less corrupt, for example, than the German Army. Good for us. The victory we win will not be as good as it might be, if it were a different kind of army, but it will be the best kind of victory we can expect in this day and age, and I'm thankful for it.”
― Irwin Shaw, quote from The Young Lions
“Horror would not annoy a soldier any more than the sight of a hammer annoys a carpenter. It is sentimental to pretend that horror is not the tool of the soldier, just as the hammer is the tool of the carpenter. We live off death and the threat of death and we must take it calmly and use it well.... Eventually I came to enjoy killing, as a pianist enjoys the Czerny which keeps his fingers limber for the Beethoven.”
― Irwin Shaw, quote from The Young Lions
“It is always necessary to remain barbarians, because it is the barbarians who always win.”
― Irwin Shaw, quote from The Young Lions
“This time it is not a simple, understandable war, within the same culture. This time it is an assault of the animal world upon the house of the human being. I don’t know what you saw in Africa and Italy, but I know what I saw in Russia and Poland. We made a cemetery a thousand miles long and a thousand miles wide. Men, women, children, Poles, Russians, Jews, it made no difference. It could not be compared to any human action. It could be compared to a weasel in a henhouse. It was as though we felt that if we left anything alive in the East, it would one day bear witness against us and condemn us. And, now, we have made the final mistake. We are losing the war”
― Irwin Shaw, quote from The Young Lions
“The abuse of alcohol,” Mr. Parrish said in a solemn, preacher-like voice, as he reached for his glass, “is the one thing that puts Man above the animal.”
― Irwin Shaw, quote from The Young Lions
“The world," said Pavone, "will swing to the left. The whole world except America. The world will swing, not because people read Karl Marx, or because agitators will come out of Russia, but because, after the war is over, that will be the only way they can turn. Everything else will have been tried, everything else will have failed. And I am afraid that American will be isolated, hated, backward, we will all be living there like old maids in a lonely house in the woods, locking the doors, looking under the beds, with a fortune in the mattress, not being able to sleep, because every time the wind blows and a floor creaks, we will think the murderers are breaking in to kill us and take our treasure...”
― Irwin Shaw, quote from The Young Lions
“It had been off-hand and flattering, in exactly the proper proportions, and Louise had cleverly erected a thin shield of something that was less than and better than love to protect him from the comic, unending abuse of the Army. And, now, it was probably over. Women, Michael thought resentfully, can never learn the art of being transients. They are all permanent settlers at heart, making homes with dull, instinctive persistence in floods and wars, on the edges of invasions, at the moment of the crumbling of states. No, he thought, I will not have it. For my own protection I am going to get through this time alone …”
― Irwin Shaw, quote from The Young Lions
“You’re a good model for a German soldier, except for the hair. You look as though you once had a thought in your head and that’s hard to find.”
― Irwin Shaw, quote from The Young Lions
“Are these the people, created in greatness by the work of Jefferson and Franklin, he thought, are these the bitter farmers and hunters and craftsmen who came out of the wilderness, furious for liberty and justice, is this the new world of giants sung by Whitman?”
― Irwin Shaw, quote from The Young Lions
“He always felt trapped and restless when talking to lawyers or doing any business with them,”
― Irwin Shaw, quote from The Young Lions
“It was the most banal idea about a war, Michael knew, that if of fatality, but it was impossible not to think of it, impossible not to think of the casual threads of accident on which we survive to face the next if that comes tomorrow.”
― Irwin Shaw, quote from The Young Lions
“Like most well-brought-up persons of twentieth-century America, the ritual of the private bathroom with the locked door was one of the pillars of existence.”
― Irwin Shaw, quote from The Young Lions
“The modern world, he thought resentfully, prepares you very poorly for the tests it puts you to.”
― Irwin Shaw, quote from The Young Lions
“He doesn’t drink.” “Your boss,” said Michael, “is a dangerous alien.”
― Irwin Shaw, quote from The Young Lions
“The human race was only bearable when the obscene juices of living were being constantly washed away.”
― Irwin Shaw, quote from The Young Lions
Irwin Shaw
Born place: in South Bronx, New York City, New York, The United States
Born date February 27, 1913
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“Sometimes he wished he didn’t have a sister, though he loved Deenie and still remembered the feeling he had when he caught that kid Ethan pushing her off the swing set in the school yard in fifth grade. And how time seemed to speed up until he was shoving the kid into the fence and tearing his jacket. The admiring look his sister gave him after, the way his parents pretended to be mad at him but he could tell they weren’t.
These days, it was pretty different. There’d be those moments he was forced to think about her not just as Deenie but as the girl whose slender tank tops hung over the shower curtain. Like bright streamers, like the flair the cheerleaders threw at games.
Sometimes he wished he didn’t have a sister.”
― Megan Abbott, quote from The Fever
“You need to ratchet down the crazy town.”
― A.E. Kirk, quote from Demons in Disguise
“Alle mennesker heter egentlig noe annet.”
― John Ajvide Lindqvist, quote from Little Star
“A sudden yowl from up ahead had them all starting. A small tree smoked on one side, the faint glow of fire darting from a burning patch of dead foliage. The yowl came again. Matt hurried over and peered up the tree to see a calico cat, its green eyes staring down, as if in accusation.
"No," Reyna said, stopping beside him. "We are not rescuing the cat."
"But the tree -"
"- is on fire. I see that. Have you ever owned a cat? If they can go up, they can come down. Guaranteed."
Matt eyed the feline. It eyed him back, then yowled, as if to say Well, hurry it up.
"It might be too scared to come down," he said.
"It's a cat," Reyna said. "They don't get scared - just annoyed, which I'm going to get if you insist on playing hero and rescuing that faker." She scowled at the cat. "Yes, I mean you. Faker."
The cat sniffed, then turned to Matt, clearly sensing the softer touch.
Owen stepped forward. "If you'll feel better rescuing the cat, Matt, then go ahead. We aren't on a tight schedule."
Reyna waved her arms around the smoking street. "Um, Ragnarök?"
"And the longer you two bicker ..."
"Fine," Reyna said. "I've got this." Before Matt could protest, she walked to the base of the tree, grabbed the lowest branch, and swung up. "Rodeo girl, remember? Also, five years of gymnastics, which my mother thought would make me more graceful and feminine. Her mistake."
She shimmied along a branch. "Come on, faker. I'm your designated hero for today." She looked down at Matt. "And if you ever tell anyone I rescued a cat from a tree ..."
Before Matt could answer, the cat sprang to the ground.
"Arggh!" Reyna said.
"You scared him out," Matt said. "He just needed the extra motivation. No, wait. It's a she. Calicos are almost always female."
"Are they? Huh." Reyna swung out. The cat sat on the ground below, watching.
"See?" Matt said. "She's grateful."
"She's gloating. Let's go.”
― K.L. Armstrong, quote from Thor's Serpents
“No one will read what I write here, no one will come to help me... My ship is rudderless, it's driven by the wind blowing into the nethermost regions of death.”
― Franz Kafka, quote from The Complete Short Stories
Come to Me Quietly
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Hard Rain Falling
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The Cricket on the H...BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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