Gracie > Gracie's Quotes

“But there were other victims as well, even after Woland left the capital, and these victims, sadly enough, were black cats.”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“LINDA [with infinite patience]”
― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

“And the rest is rust and stardust.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

“Dear Jesus, do something.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire

“I want you to know that no matter how much you hurt me, you cannot hurt my love," and this sentence (if we re-English it from the Zemblan) came out as: "I desire you and love when you flog me.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire

“At Christmas parties games were rough, no doubt,
And one shy little guest might be left out;
But let's be fair: while children of her age
Were cast as elves and fairies on the stage
That she'd helped paint for the school pantomime,
My gentle girl appeared as Mother Time,
A bent charwoman with a slop pail and broom,
And like a fool I sobbed in the men's room.”
― Vladimir Nabokov , Pale Fire

“It was absolutely necessary to interrupt him now. ”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“There were no grown-ups in the room, evidently they had all run out of the apartment.
‘They’re breaking the windows,’ the boy said and called: ‘Mama!’
No one answered, and then he said:
‘Mama, I’m afraid.’
Margarita drew the little curtain aside and flew in.
‘I’m afraid,’ the boy repeated, and trembled.
‘Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid, little one,’ said Margarita, trying to soften her criminal voice, grown husky from the wind. ‘It’s some boys breaking windows.’
‘With a slingshot?’ the boy asked, ceasing to tremble.
‘With a slingshot, with a slingshot,’ Margarita confirmed, ‘and you go to sleep.’
‘It’s Sitnik,’ said the boy, ‘he’s got a slingshot.’
‘Well, of course it’s he!’
The boy looked slyly somewhere to the side and asked:
‘And where are you, ma’am?’
‘I’m nowhere,’ answered Margarita, ‘I’m your dream.’
‘I thought so,’ said the boy.
‘Lie down now,’ Margarita ordered, ‘put your hand under your cheek, and I’ll go on being your dream.’
‘Well, be my dream, then,’ the boy agreed, and at once lay down and put his hand under his cheek.”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, Master and Margarita: Translated from the Russian

“L'autre soir un air froid d'opéra m'alita;
Son félé -- bien fol est qui s'y fie!
Il neige, le décor s'écroule, Lolita!
Lolita, qu'ai-je fait de ta vie?

Dying, dying, Lolita Haze,
Of hate and remorse, I'm dying.
And again my hairy fist I raise,
And again I hear you crying.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

“A quarter of an hour later, Ruikhin sat in complete solitude, hunched over his bream, drinking glass after glass, understanding and recognizing that it was no longer possible to set anything right in his life, that it was only possible to forget.”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, Master and Margarita: Translated from the Russian

“Name?'
'Mine?' the arrested man hastily responded, his whole being expressing a readiness to answer sensibly, without provoking further wrath.
The prosecutor said softly:
'I know my own. Don't pretend to be stupider than you are. Yours.”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, Master and Margarita: Translated from the Russian

“His teeth still bared, the procurator glanced at the arrested man, then at the sun, steadily rising over the equestrian statues of the hippodrome, which lay far below to the right, and suddenly, in some sickening anguish, thought that the simplest thing would be to drive this strange robber off the balcony by uttering just two words: 'Hang him.' To drive the convoy away as well, to leave the colonnade, go into the palace, order the room darkened, collapse on the bed, send for cold water, call in a plaintive voice for his dog Banga, and complain to him about the hemicrania. And the thought of poison suddenly flashed temptingly in the procurator's sick head.”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, Master and Margarita: Translated from the Russian

“Yes, they are hounding me.”
― Franz Kafka, The Trial

“love leaped out in front of us like a murderer in an alley leaping out of nowhere, and struck us both at once. As lightning strikes, as a Finnish knife strikes!”
― Bulgakov Mikhail Afanas'evich, Мастер и Маргарита

“If you ever looked at me once with what I know is in you, I would be your slave.”
― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

“You see, she had absolutely nowhere else to go.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

“And he absolutely had to find her at once to tell her that he adored her, but the large audience before him separated him from the door, and the notes reaching him through a succession of hands said that she was not available; that she was inaugurating a fire; that she had married an american businessman; that she had become a character in a novel; that she was dead.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire

“In the wet starlight and on the wet ground.
The lake lay in the mist, its ice half drowned.
A blurry shape stepped off the reedy bank
Into a crackling, gulping swamp, and sank.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire

“A system of cells interlinked within
Cells interlinked within cells interlinked
Within one stem. And dreadfully distinct
Against the dark, a tall white fountain played.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire

“Maud Shade was eighty when a sudden hush
Fell on her life. We saw the angry flush
And torsion of paralysis assail
Her noble cheek. We moved her to Pinedale,
Famed for its sanitarium. There she'd sit
In the glassed sun and watch the fly that lit
Upon her dress and then upon her wrist.
Her mind kept fading in the growing mist.
She still could speak. She paused, and groped, and found
What seemed at first a serviceable sound,
But from adjacent cells impostors took
The place of words she needed, and her look
Spelt imploration as she fought in vain
To reason with the monsters in her brain.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire

“People walked past Margarita Nokilaevna. Some man gave the well-dressed woman a sidelong glace, attracted by her beauty and her solitude. He coughed and sat down at the end of the same bench that Margarita Nikolaevana was sitting on. Plucking up his courage, he began:
'Definitely nice weather today. . .'
But Margarita gave him such a dark look that he got up and left.”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, Master and Margarita: Translated from the Russian

“Woland silently raised his class and clinked with Margarita. Margarita drank obediently, thinking that this alcohol would be the end of her. But nothing bad happened”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“The procurator studied the newcomer with greedy and slightly frightened eyes. So one looks at a man of whom one has heard a great deal, of whom one has been thinking, and who finally appears.”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“But you didn’t rest your mind. Your mind is overactive, and the mind is what counts, dear.”
― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

“WILLY [smiling]: Well, I figure, what the hell, life is short, a couple of jokes. [To himself] I joke too much! [The smile goes.]”
― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

“And be sweet to him tonight, dear. Be loving to him. Because he’s only a little boat looking for a harbor.”
― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

“Don’t you understand what I’m talking about? He’s going to kill himself, don’t you know that?”
― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

“Why, Mr. Stevens, why, why, why do you always have to pretend?”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day

“I never cried for such a thing in my life: I hate going out in the carriage. I cry because I am miserable.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I often stood in front of the mirror alone, wondering how ugly a person could get.”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye