Quotes from Books

“Let it be admitted, then, that I was thinking of Natalia Haldin’s life in terms of her mother’s character, a manner of thinking about a girl permissible for an old man, not too old yet to have become a stranger to pity. There was almost all her youth before her; a youth robbed arbitrarily of its natural lightness and joy, overshadowed by an un-European despotism; a terribly somber youth given over to the hazards of a furious strife between equally ferocious antagonisms.”

Joseph Conrad - "Under Western Eyes"


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Every time I read this I cry, I actually cry...

Petronius: [in his dying letter to Nero] "To Nero, Emperor of Rome, Master of the World, Divine Pontiff. I know that my death will be a disappointment to you, since you wished to render me this service yourself. To be born in your reign is a miscalculation; but to die in it is a joy. I can forgive you for murdering your wife and your mother, for burning our beloved Rome, for befouling our fair country with the stench of your crimes. But one thing I cannot forgive - the boredom of having to listen to your verses, your second-rate songs, your mediocre performances. Adhere to your special gifts, Nero - murder and arson, betrayal and terror. Mutilate your subjects if you must; but with my last breath I beg you - do not mutilate the arts. Fare well but compose no more music. Brutalize the people but do not bore them, as you have bored to death your friend, the late Gaius Petronius."

...
in the first place, at home, I spent most of my time reading. I tried to stifle all that was continually seething within me by external sensations. And the only source of external sensation possible for me was reading. Reading was a great help, of course, it exited, delighted and tormented me. But at times it bored me terribly. .....

Notes from underground.
Dostoyevsky

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Fuzzy_duck

Every time I read this I cry, I actually cry...

Petronius: [in his dying letter to Nero] "To Nero, Emperor of Rome, Master of the World, Divine Pontiff. I know that my death will be a disappointment to you, since you wished to render me this service yourself. To be born in your reign is a miscalculation; but to die in it is a joy. I can forgive you for murdering your wife and your mother, for burning our beloved Rome, for befouling our fair country with the stench of your crimes. But one thing I cannot forgive - the boredom of having to listen to your verses, your second-rate songs, your mediocre performances. Adhere to your special gifts, Nero - murder and arson, betrayal and terror. Mutilate your subjects if you must; but with my last breath I beg you - do not mutilate the arts. Fare well but compose no more music. Brutalize the people but do not bore them, as you have bored to death your friend, the late Gaius Petronius."

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That's very funny. Is the rest of the Satyricon that funny?

It's not Satyricon. It's Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz :p

We submerge our truths and have our sunsets on untroubled waters.

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The helpless are the cruelest lot of all: they shift their burdens so.

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Do we dislike happiness? We manufacture such a portion of our own despair . . .

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It's sad to know you've gone through it all, or most of it, without . . . that the one body you've wrapped your arms around . . . and the only skin you've ever known . . . is your own - and it's dry . . . and not warm.

"Ill fares the land, to hasteneing ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay;
Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade;
A breath can make them, as a breath has made;
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroy'd, can never be supplied"


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from Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins


"At birth, we emerge from dream soup.
At death, we sink back into dream soup.
In between soups, there is a crossing of dry land.
Life is a portage."

"That we were slaves I had known all my life - and nothing could done about it. True, we weren't bought and sold - but as long as Authority held monopoly over what we had to have and what we could sell to buy it, we were slaves." - Robert A. Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

I thought about the difference between the interesting people and the nice people. And how they can't always be identical. The interesting people you wanted to be with - their minds were unusual, you saw things freshly with them and all was not deadness and repetition... Then there were the nice people who weren't interesting, and you didn't want to know what they thought of anything... they were good and meek and deserved more love. But it was the interesting ones ... who ended up with everything ...

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'It made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. That's how I knew it was good. I judge all art by its effect on my neck.'

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'I am constantly disappointed by how little we expect of ourselves and of the world.'

"Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the rules."
"Yes, sir. I know it is. I know it."
Game, my ***. Some game. If you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, then it's a game, all right — I'll admit that. But if you get on the other side, where there aren't any hot-shots, then what's a game about it? Nothing. No game.

"Not all those who wander are lost."
- J.R.R. Tolkien

I don't remember which book.

delete this

Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.

Stranger fiends hide here, in human form, than reside in the valleys of hell. But goodness, kindness, and love arise in the heart of the beast as well. (don't remember where I read that)