Richard Brautigan · 400 pages
Rating: (8.4K votes)
“the sweet juices of your mouth
are like castles bathed in honey.
i've never had it done so gently before.
you have put a circle of castles
around my penis and you swirl them
like sunlight on the wings of birds.”
― Richard Brautigan, quote from Trout Fishing in America / The Pill vs. the Springhill Mine Disaster / In Watermelon Sugar
“I feel horrible. She doesn't
love me and I wander around
the house like a sewing machine
that's just finished sewing
a turd to a garbage can lid.”
― Richard Brautigan, quote from Trout Fishing in America / The Pill vs. the Springhill Mine Disaster / In Watermelon Sugar
“There was a fine thing about that trout. I only wish I could have made a death mask of him. Not of his body though, but of his energy. I don't know if anyone would have understood his body. I put it in my creel.”
― Richard Brautigan, quote from Trout Fishing in America / The Pill vs. the Springhill Mine Disaster / In Watermelon Sugar
“Thousands of graveyards were parked in rows like cars.”
― Richard Brautigan, quote from Trout Fishing in America / The Pill vs. the Springhill Mine Disaster / In Watermelon Sugar
“Once, while cleaning the trout before I went home in the almost night, I had a vision of going over to the poor graveyard and gathering up grass and fruit jars and tin cans and markers and wilted flowers and bugs and weeds and clods and going home and putting a hook in the vise and tying a fly with all that stuff and then going outside and casting it up into the sky, watching it float over clouds and then into the evening star.
(from Trout Fishing on the Bevel, page 21)”
― Richard Brautigan, quote from Trout Fishing in America / The Pill vs. the Springhill Mine Disaster / In Watermelon Sugar
“Then they decided that the fleas that lived on Siamese cats would probably be more intelligent than the fleas that lived on just ordinary alley cats. It only made sense that drinking intelligent blood would make intelligent fleas.”
― Richard Brautigan, quote from Trout Fishing in America / The Pill vs. the Springhill Mine Disaster / In Watermelon Sugar
“Everything smelled of sheep. The dandelions were suddenly more sheep than flower, each petal reflecting wool and the sound of a bell ringing off the yellow. But the thing that smelled the most like sheep, was the very sun itself. When the sun went behind a cloud, the smell of the sheep decreased, like standing on some old guy's hearing aid, and when the sun came back again, the smell of the sheep was loud, like a clap of thunder inside a coffee cup.
(from "On Paradise", page 50)”
― Richard Brautigan, quote from Trout Fishing in America / The Pill vs. the Springhill Mine Disaster / In Watermelon Sugar
“I saw Trout Fishing in America Shorty passed out in the front window of a Filipino laundromat. He was sitting in his wheelchair with closed eyes staring out the window.
There was a tranquil expression on his face. He almost looked human. He had probably fallen asleep while he was having his brains washed in one of the machines.
(from "The Shipping of Trout Fishing in America Shorty to Nelson Algren", page 47)”
― Richard Brautigan, quote from Trout Fishing in America / The Pill vs. the Springhill Mine Disaster / In Watermelon Sugar
Richard Brautigan
Born place: in Tacoma, Washington, The United States
Born date January 30, 1935
See more on GoodReads
“Меня томило ужасное ощущение, будто великие приключения беспрестанно следуют одно за другим там, где меня нет, — грандиозные, колоритные приключения, которые никогда больше не повторяются.”
― Tove Jansson, quote from Moominpappa's Memoirs
“If our opponent believes nothing of divine revelation, there is no longer any means of proving the articles of faith by reasoning, but only of answering his objections--if he has any--against faith. Since faith rests upon infallible truth, and since the contrary of a truth can never be demonstrated, it is clear that the arguments brought against faith cannot be demonstrations, but are difficulties that can be answered.”
― Thomas Aquinas, quote from Summa Theologica, 5 Vols
“There are people,' he said, 'who give, and there are people who take. There are people who create, people who destroy, and people who don't do anything and drive the other two kinds crazy. It's born in you, whether you give or take, and that's the way you are. Ravens bring things to people. We're like that. It's our nature. We don't like it. We'd much rather be eagles, or swans, or even one of those moronic robins, but we're ravens and there you are. Ravens don't feel right without somebody to bring things to, and when we do find somebody we realize what a silly business it was in the first place." He made a sound between a chuckle and a cough. "Ravens are pretty neurotic birds. We're closer to people than any other bird, and we're bound to them all our lives, but we don't have to like them. You think we brought Elijah food because we liked him? He was an old man with a dirty beard.”
― Peter S. Beagle, quote from A Fine and Private Place
“I just...I've fantasized about peace and quiet for so long, dreamt about being left alone...but when the TV was off, and the sun was down...I'm in a full sob right now. I've just never felt so alone, and I couldn't take it.”
― Andrea Randall, quote from In the Stillness
“At what point will I be able to write an e-mail to my grandson in Bahrain merely by thinking it?"
"Thinking it?" Alif smiled contemptuously. "I expect never. Quantum computing will be the next thing, but I don't think it will be capable of transcribing thought."
"Quantum? Oh dear, I've never heard of that."
It will use qubits instead of-well, that's kind of complicated. Regular computers use a binary language to figure things out and talk to each other-ones and zeroes. Quantum computers could use ones and zeroes in an unlimited number of states, so in theory, they could store massive amounts of data and perform tasks that regular computers can't perform."
"States?"
"Positions in space and time. Ways of being."
"Now it is you who are metaphysical. Let me rephrase what I think you have said in language from my own field of study: they say that each word in the Quran has seven thousand layers of meaning, each of which, though some might seem contrary or simply unfathomable to us, exist equally at all times without cosmological contradiction. Is this similar to what you mean?"
"Yes," he said. "That is exactly what I mean. I've never heard anybody make that comparison.”
― G. Willow Wilson, quote from Alif the Unseen
Gardens of the Moon
The Devouring
To Have and Have Not
Mein Kampf
Wise Blood
VALISBookQuoters 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.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.
