Inna > Inna's Quotes

“If the real world were a book, it would never find a publisher. Overlong, detailed to the point of distraction-and ultimately, without a major resolution.”
― Jasper Fforde, Something Rotten

“Pretend to be mad and talk a lot. Then — and this is the important bit — do nothing at all until you absolutely have to and then make sure everyone dies.”
― Jasper Fforde, Something Rotten

“-Стига си ме прекъсвал! Пий! Мирувай и живей, убиецо със скалпел в ръка! Виж какви сме станали! Доколкото ми е известно, само старите гърци са имали богове на пиенето и веселието: Бакхус и Дионисий. Вместо това ние имаме Фройд, комплекс за малоценност и психоанализ. Страхуваме се от силните думи в любовта, а употребяваме много по-силни в политиката. Жалко поколение, нали? — намигна Морозов.”
― Ерих Мария Ремарк

“Париж се появи изведнъж в краката им. Просторен, трептящ, мокър. Париж с улици, площади, нощ, облаци и луна, с венеца на булевардите, бледото сияние на хълмовете, с кули, покриви и мрак, който се бореше със светлината; Париж с ветреца откъм хоризонта, искрящата равнина, мостовете с очертания от мрак и светлина, с пороя, изливащ се далеко над Сена, с безброя светлини на летящи коли. Париж, роден напук от нощта, огромен кошер, гъмжащ от живот, изграден над милиони мръсни канали, цвете на светлината, изникнало над подземна смрад, коварна болест и Мона Лиза. Париж.”
― Ерих Мария Ремарк

“For a moment the last sunshine fell with romantic affection upon her glowing face; her voice compelled me forward breathlessly as I listened - then the glow faded, each light deserting her with lingering regret, like children leaving a pleasant street at dusk.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning-- So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams -- not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“If that was true he must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream. He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass. A new world, material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about...like that ashen, fantastic figure gliding toward him through the amorphous trees.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“Deep down, I don’t believe it takes any special talent for a person to lift himself off the ground and hover in the air. We all have it in us—every man, woman, and child—and with enough hard work and concentration, every human being is capable of…the feat….You must learn to stop being yourself. That’s where it begins, and everything else follows from that. You must let yourself evaporate. Let your muscles go limp, breathe until you feel your soul pouring out of you, and then shut your eyes. That’s how it’s done. The emptiness inside your body grows lighter than the air around you. Little by little, you begin to weigh less than nothing. You shut your eyes; you spread your arms; you let yourself evaporate. And then, little by little, you lift yourself off the ground.
Like so.”
― Paul Auster, Mr. Vertigo

“Измислица е, всичко е измислица. И нямат легенди вековете; всяко поколение е съчинявало само за себе си и нищо не се е предавало от минало за бъдеще. Даже надали е имало минало. И не ще има бъдеще. Нищо не е имало и нищо не ще има: мърсете, колкото искате - дедите не ще чуят и внуците не ще се червят.”
― Антон Страшимиров, Хоро

“Здрачът изведнъж се спуска върху прозореца. Забулва го с воал от почти невидима дрезгавина. Всичко е още тук както преди — светлината вън, зеленината, жълтите пътища, двете палми в големите саксии от фаянс, небето с облачните фронтове, далечното, сиво и червено гъмжило от покриви в града, зад горите… И нищо не е вече тук както преди — здрачът го е изолирал, покрил го е с лака на преходността, приготвил го е за храна на вълци на нощта — както домакините приготвят печено с кисел сос. Само Изабел е още тук, вкопчила се в последното въже на светлината, но то вече я въвлича в драмата на вечерта, която никога не е била драма, а е драма само защото знаем, че се нарича преходност. Едва откакто сме узнали, че трябва да умрем, и защото знаем това, идилията се е превърнала в драма, кръгът — в копие, развитието — в упадък, викът — в страх, а бягството — в присъда.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, The Black Obelisk

“Не се сърдете, че тоя път ще говоря за отдавна минали времена. Над света пак е надвиснала бледата светлина на Апокалипсиса, миризмата на кръвта и прахът от последната разруха още не са отлетели, а лаборатории и фабрики отново работят под пълна пара, за да запазят мира чрез изобретяването на оръжия, с които цялото земно кълбо може да бъде хвърлено във въздуха…

Мирът на земята! Никога не се е говорило повече и никога не се е правило по-малко за него, отколкото в наше време; никога не е имало повече мними пророци, повече лъжи и повече смърт, никога не е имало повече разрушения и повече сълзи, отколкото в нашия, двадесетия век — векът на напредъка, техниката и цивилизацията, векът на масовата култура и масовите убийства…

Затова не се сърдете, че сега се връщам към онези легендарни години, когато надеждата все още се вееше като знаме над нас и ние вярвахме в такива съмнителни неща като човечност, справедливост, търпимост, а също и в това, че една световна война трябваше да бъде достатъчно назидание за едно поколение…”
― Erich Maria Remarque

“She was about twenty-four, Rosemary guessed - her face could have been described in terms of conventional prettiness, but the effect was that it had been made first on the heroic scale with strong structure and marking, as if the features and vividness of brow and coloring, everything we associate with temperament and character had been molded with a Rodinesque intention, and then chiseled away in the direction of prettiness to a point where a single slip would have irreparably diminished its force and quality. With the mouth the sculptor had taken desperate chances - it was the cupid's bow of a magazine cover, yet it shared the distinction of the rest.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night

“But to be included in Dick Diver’s world for a while was a remarkable experience: people believed he made special reservations about them, recognizing the proud uniqueness of their destinies, buried under the compromises of how many years. He won everyone quickly with an exquisite consideration and a politeness that moved so fast and intuitively that it could be examined only in its effect. Then, without caution, lest the first bloom of the relation wither, he opened the gate to his amusing world. So long as they subscribed to it completely, their happiness was his preoccupation, but at the first flicker of doubt as to its all- inclusiveness he evaporated before their eyes, leaving little communicable memory of what he had said or done.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night

“- Why me?
- That is a very Earthling question to ask, Mr. Pilgrim. Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?
- Yes.
- Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why.”
― Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Slaughterhouse-Five

“It was The Gospel From Outer Space, by Kilgore Trout. It was about a visitor from outer space...[who] made a serious study of Christianity, to learn, if he could, why Christians found it so easy to be cruel. He concluded that at least part of the trouble was slipshod storytelling in the New Testament. He supposed that the intent of the Gospels was to teach people, among other things, to be merciful, even to the lowest of the low. But the Gospels actually taught this: Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn't well connected. So it goes. The flaw in the Christ stories, said the visitor from outer space, was that Christ, who didn't look like much, was actually the Son of the Most Powerful Being in the Universe. Readers understood that, so, when they came to the crucifixion, they naturally thought...: "Oh, boy - they sure picked the wrong guy to lynch that time!" And that thought had a brother: "There are right people to lynch." Who? People not well connected. So it goes.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

“The master of ceremonies asked people to say what they thought the function of the novel might be in modern society, and one critic said, "To provide touches of color in rooms with all-white walls." Another one said, "To describe blow-jobs artistically." Another one said, "To teach wives of junior executives what to buy next and how to act in a French restaurant.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

“He was looking for programs on which he might be allowed to appear. But it was too early in the evening for programs that allowed people with peculiar opinions to speak out. It was only a little after eight o'clock, so all the shows were about silliness or murder.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

“His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy’s white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed like a flower and the incarnation was complete.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“Sometimes it seems' said Grok, 'that the faces exist of themselves, in a disembodied somewhere, waiting for the clown who will wear them, who will bring them to life. Faces that wait in the mirrors of unknown dressing-rooms, unseen in the depths of the glass like fish in dusty pools, fish that will rise up out of the obscure profundity when they spot the one who anxiously scrutinises his own reflection for the face it lacks, man eating fish waiting to gobble up your being and give you another instead...”
― Angela Carter, Nights at the Circus

“Time...give us enough time and our best-supported decisions will seem wobbly, our certainties whimsical.”
― Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending

“How often do we tell our own life story? How often do we adjust, embellish, make sly cuts? And the longer life goes on, the fewer are those around to challenge our account, to remind us that our life is not our life, merely the story we have told about our life. Told to others, but—mainly—to ourselves.”
― Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending

“History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation.”
― Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending

“We live in time - it holds us and molds us - but I never felt I understood it very well. And I'm not referring to theories about how it bends and doubles back, or may exist elsewhere in parallel versions. No, I mean ordinary, everyday time, which clocks and watches assure us passes regularly: tick-tock, click-clock. Is there anything more plausible than a second hand? And yet it takes only the smallest pleasure or pain to teach us time's malleability. Some emotions speed it up, others slow it down; occasionally, it seems to go missing - until the eventual point when it really does go missing, never to return.”
― Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending

“When you're young - when I was young - you want your emotions to be like the ones you read about in books. You want them to overturn your life, create and define a new reality. Later, I think, you want them to do something milder, something more practical: you want them to support your life as it is and has become. You want them to tell you that things are OK. And is there anything wrong with that?”
― Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending

“Sometimes I think the purpose of life is to reconcile us to its eventual loss by wearing us down, by proving, however long it takes, that life isn't all it's cracked up to be.”
― Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending

“It's a disease. Nobody thinks or feels or cares any more; nobody gets excited or believes in anything except their own comfortable little God damn mediocrity.”
― Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road

“i mean talk about decadence," he declared, "how decadent can a society get? Look at it this way. This country's probably the psychiatric, psychoanalytical capital of the world. Old Freud himself could never've dreamed up a more devoted bunch of disciples than the population of the United States - isn't that right? Our whole damn culture is geared to it; it's the new religion; it's everybody's intellectual and spiritual sugar-tit. And for all that, look what happens when a man really does blow his top. Call the Troopers, get him out of sight quick, hustle him off and lock him up before he wakes the neighbors. Christ's sake, when it comes to any kind of showdown we're still in the Middle Ages. It's as if everybody'd made this tacit agreement to live in a state of total self-deception. The hell with reality! Let's have a whole bunch of cute little winding roads and cute little houses painted white and pink and baby blue; let's all be good consumers and have a lot of Togetherness and bring our children up in a bath of sentimentality -- and if old reality ever does pop out and say Boo we'll all get busy and pretend it never happened.”
― Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road

“The Revolutionary Hill Estates had not been designed to accommodate a tragedy. Even at night, as if on purpose, the development held no looming shadows and no gaunt silhouettes. It was invincibly cheerful, a toyland of white and pastel houses whose bright, uncurtained windows winked blandly through a dappling of green and yellow leaves … A man running down these streets in desperate grief was indecently out of place.”
― Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road

“I'm a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.”
― J.D. Salinger, Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters & Seymour: An Introduction