Quotes from Books

[quasimodo1]

Letter 376A: Confessionn of Faith, (a note to himself), it is not clear if he sent this to any of his correspondents. Not the conquest of the air, but our entry thither. We come. Our soiled overalls were the the livery of that sunrise. The soilings of our bodies in its sevice were prismatic with its light. Moody or broody. From ground to air. First we are not earthbound. In speed we hurl ourselves behond the body. Our bodies cannot scale the heavens except in a fume of petrol. The concentration of our bodies in entering a loop. Bones, blood, flesh all pressed inward together. Not the conquest of the air. Be plain, guts. In speed we hurl ourselves beyond the body. We enter it. we come. Our bodies cannot scale heaven except in a fume of burnt petrol. As lords that are expected. Yet there is a silent joy in our arrival. Years and years. Long arpeggios of chafing wires. The concentration of one's body in entering a loop. { ......this "letter" is more a poetic memorandum to himself of a personal and spiritual nature (my comment). No footnote indicates otherwise.}

[Zybahn]

Vladimir Nabokov, Transparent Things.

As he went down the passage he encountered three steps before reaching the lift. The only purpose he could assign to them was that they warned him he was going to suffer.

[karo]

The next morning I woke to a sense of an utterly changed world, like on the first day of war. Joy, hope, came too, but fear first, and a black sense of confusion as if the deep logic of the universe had suddenly gone wrong.

[aeroport]

from Moby-Dick
(Old Fleece preaches to the sharks eating the whale carcass)

"Your woraciousness, fellow-critters, I don't blame ye so much for; dat is natur, and can't be helped; but to gobern dat wicked natur, dat is de pint. You is sharks, sartin; but if you gobern de shark in you, why den you be angel; for all angel is not'ing more dan de shark well goberned. Now, look here, bred'ren, just try wonst to be cibil, a helping yourselbs from dat whale. Don't be tearin' de blubber out your neighbour's mout, I say. Is not one shark dood right as toder to dat whale? And, by Gor, none on you has de right to dat whale; dat whale belong to some one else. I know some o' you has berry brig mout, brigger dan oders; but den de brig mouts sometimes has de small bellies; so dat de brigness ob de mout is not to swallar wid, but to bite off de blubber for de small fry ob sharks, dat can't get into de scrouge to help demselves."

[quasimodo1]

Letter 464: To W.B. Yeats, October 12, 1932, postmarked Mount Batten, Plymouth................."I am Irish, and it has been a chance to admit it publicly- but it touches me very deeply that you should think anything I have done or been to justify this honour. I'm afraid the truth-if people could look inside- would destroy the flattering picture of myself that has been put about. I knew you had seen my "Revolt", because you referred to it in your foreward to Gogarty's last Cuala selection: but I never expected this. It is very good of you, and touches me particularly, for I have been reading your work for years. ..............I set eyes on you once, in Oxford, many years ago, and wanted then to call the street to attention but fortunately did nothing. I hope that you are going further yet, in poetry, for our benefit."

[River]

From "Cry, The Beloved Country" by Alan Paton:

"Cry for the broken tribe, for the law and the custom that is gone. Aye, and cry aloud for the man who is dead, for the women and children bereaved. Cry, the beloved country, these things are not yet at an end. The sun pours down on the earth, on the lovely land that man cannot enjoy. He knows only the fear of his heart."

[karo]

What an excellent quote, river. It's moving, it's poetic. Wonderful!

[River]

What an excellent quote, river. It's moving, it's poetic. Wonderful!

I'm glad you liked it. At about four parts in the novel thus-far he begins a paragraph with those four words. When he finally sat down after writing it and need to come up with a title, he and his editor (I think!) decided to both write down what they thought it should be called. They both wrote 'Cry, The Beloved Country' which really go to show how memorable the parts which started with those lines were.

[quasimodo1]

"The tendon of the day is strained,/The week is plunged into deep shadow/ Lighter than the skin of my face." .....from the poem, "Head of a Woman" by Medbh McGuckian

[Duna]

I´m Reading a Song of Ice and Fire III

[thelastmelon]

"Drygt en månad efter Sommarkväll sjunger Cornelis åter kärleksvisor till Bim, men deras relation är på väg att rämna. Misshandeln på Castle Hotel är början till slutet, i ytterligare ett och ett halvt år ska de separera och återförenas."

You understood a lot of that, didn't you?
I'll try to translate it for you:

"About a month after Summernight, Cornelis is once again singing love-songs to Bim, but their relationship is falling apart. The abuse on Castle Hotel is the beginning of the end, for another one and a half years they shall separate and reunite."

[Idril]

From World Light by Halldór Laxness:

But when a man is both spiritually and physically ill, one becomes a poet involuntarily; you simply can't help it.

[Harpo Marx]

From War and Peace:

"Pfuel was one of those theoreticians who so love their theory that they lose sight of the theory's object- it's practical application" (Book 9).

[byquist]

"The position of the humanities in our colleges and universities today is discouraging. They stand at the bottom of the hierarchy of authority and prestige. They lack the obvious value, and easy self-confidence, that the natural and social sciences possess ... The technical imperative that rules our lives imprisons the devout and their bemused critics alike ... At the very heart of our civilization, with its vast powers of control, there is an emptiness that science has created and cannot fulfill."

These quotes can't do justice to this persuasive, 2007 book by ex-Head of Yale Law School, not that he necessarily provides the accurate solution. But he covers a very wide swath of concerns:

Education's End, Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given Up on the Meaning of LIfe, by Anthony T. Kronman

[Princess_1986]

"The reason I will not exhibit this picture is that I am afraid that I have shown in it the secret of my own soul."
- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray Ch. 1

I love the George Orwell quote, Harpo. Some funky quotes on here. It's ironic that we read so many lines of text and there are very few which stick to our mind and spark inspiration.