Nellie Mitchell > Nellie's Quotes

“For several years, I had been bored. Not a whining, restless child's boredom (although I was not above that) but a dense, blanketing malaise. It seemed to me that there was nothing new to be discovered ever again. Our society was utterly, ruinously derivative (although the word derivative as a criticism is itself derivative). We were the first human beings who would never see anything for the first time. We stare at the wonders of the world, dull-eyed, underwhelmed. Mona Lisa, the Pyramids, the Empire State Building. Jungle animals on attack, ancient icebergs collapsing, volcanoes erupting. I can't recall a single amazing thing I have seen firsthand that I didn't immediately reference to a movie or TV show. A fucking commercial. You know the awful singsong of the blasé: Seeeen it. I've literally seen it all, and the worst thing, the thing that makes me want to blow my brains out, is: The secondhand experience is always better. The image is crisper, the view is keener, the camera angle and the soundtrack manipulate my emotions in a way reality can't anymore. I don't know that we are actually human at this point, those of us who are like most of us, who grew up with TV and movies and now the Internet. If we are betrayed, we know the words to say; when a loved one dies, we know the words to say. If we want to play the stud or the smart-ass or the fool, we know the words to say. We are all working from the same dog-eared script.

It's a very difficult era in which to be a person, just a real, actual person, instead of a collection of personality traits selected from an endless Automat of characters.

And if all of us are play-acting, there can be no such thing as a soul mate, because we don't have genuine souls.

It had gotten to the point where it seemed like nothing matters, because I'm not a real person and neither is anyone else.

I would have done anything to feel real again.”
― Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl

“...[A]nything worth dying for ... is certainly worth living for.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“Be glad you're even alive.'
Be furious you're going to die.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. With Major Major it had been all three. Even among men lacking all distinction he inevitably stood out as a man lacking more distinction than all the rest, and people who met him were always impressed by how unimpressive he was.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“From now on I'm thinking only of me."

Major Danby replied indulgently with a superior smile: "But, Yossarian, suppose everyone felt that way."

"Then," said Yossarian, "I'd certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way, wouldn't I?”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“He was never without misery, and never without hope.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“He was sick with lust and mesmerized with regret”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“Death to all modifiers, he declared one day, and out of every letter that passed through his hands went every adverb and every adjective.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“All through the night, men looked at the sky and were saddened by the stars.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“They couldn't keep Death out, but while she was in she had to act like a lady.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“Now you've given them hope, and they're unhappy. So the blame is all yours.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“In a world in which success was the only virtue, he had resigned himself to failure.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“He could not make them understand that...having a good time bored him and was not worth the effort.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“Maybe there is a beast… maybe it's only us.”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

“The thing is - fear can't hurt you any more than a dream.”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

“The greatest ideas are the simplest.”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

“We did everything adults would do. What went wrong?”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

“What are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages?”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

“I think women are foolish to pretend they are equal to men, they are far superior [to men] and always have been.”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

“Let's face it: our lives are miserable, laborious, and short.”
― George Orwell, Animal Farm

“His answer to every problem, every setback was “I will work harder!” —which he had adopted as his personal motto.”
― George Orwell, Animal Farm

“Do you believe,' said Candide, 'that men have always massacred each other as they do to-day, that they have always been liars, cheats, traitors, ingrates, brigands, idiots, thieves, scoundrels, gluttons, drunkards, misers, envious, ambitious, bloody-minded, calumniators, debauchees, fanatics, hypocrites, and fools?'
Do you believe,' said Martin, 'that hawks have always eaten pigeons when they have found them?”
― Voltaire, Candide

“Come! you presence will either give me life or kill me with pleasure.”
― Voltaire, Candide

“Just for the sake of amusement, ask each passenger to tell you his story, and if you find a single one who hasn’t often cursed his life, who hasn’t told himself he’s the most miserable man in the world, you can throw me overboard head first.”
― Candide, Candide

“Isn't there a pleasure in criticising everything and discovering faults where other men detect beauties?”
― Voltaire, Candide

“There is some pleasure in having no pleasure.”
― Voltaire, Candide

“My friend, you see how perishable are the riches of this world; there is nothing solid but virtue.”
― Voltaire

“You're a bitter man," said Candide.
That's because I've lived," said Martin.”
― Voltaire, Candide

“Let us cultivate our garden.”
― Voltaire, Candide

“If this is the best of possible worlds, what then are the others?”
― Voltaire, Candide