Benjamin Itner > Benjamin's Quotes

“...why was I hanging about with this child who walked beside me taking greedy licks at a big red sticky gobstopper while bursting into the odd skip and jump that was no longer the silly skipping of a carefree young creature, I’d ripped that carefreeness out from between your bones while I’d have liked nothing better than to preserve it, but you grew out of my clutches and into my heart’s desires, and I realised then that I’d never skipped as a little boy, I’d been born an adult and adults didn’t skip, they walked upright and in step, but with you, my prize animal, with you I did long to skip, you made me feel young, and I was certain things had been allowed to get this far because of my mother, she’d planted an insatiable longing in me, a permanent hurt that I tried to heal with you, hoping it would help me forget the cold years of my childhood, inside me there was a small needy boy who really wanted to play, who just wanted to have fun with you, but my suffocating lust got in the way; every time I smelled the soft sweet odour of your body I was transported to the far limits of my sanity, to my bliss, how could I resist?”
― Lucas Rijneveld, My Heavenly Favourite

“ALFRED.

Pooh!
Pray would you have had her dress always in black,
And shut herself up in a convent, dear Jack?
Besides, 'twas my fault the engagement was broken.

JOHN.

Most likely. How was it?

ALFRED.

The tale is soon spoken.
She bored me. I show'd it. She saw it. What next?
She reproach'd. I retorted. Of course she was vex'd.
I was vex'd that she was so. She sulk'd. So did I.
If I ask'd her to sing, she look'd ready to cry.
I was contrite, submissive. She soften'd. I harden'd.
At noon I was banish'd. At eve I was pardon'd.
She said I had no heart. I said she had no reason.
I swore she talk'd nonsense. She sobb'd I talk'd treason.
In short, my dear fellow, 'twas time, as you see,
Things should come to a crisis, and finish. 'Twas she
By whom to that crisis the matter was brought.
She released me. I linger'd. I linger'd, she thought,
With too sullen an aspect. This gave me, of course,
The occasion to fly in a rage, mount my horse,
And declare myself uncomprehended. And so
We parted. The rest of the story you know.”
― Owen Meredith, Lucile

“I swear
I have wander'd about in the world everywhere;
From many strange mouths have heard many strange tongues;
Strain'd with many strange idioms my lips and my lungs;
Walk'd in many a far land, regretting my own;
In many a language groaned many a groan;
And have often had reason to curse those wild fellows
Who built the high house at which Heaven turn'd jealous,
Making human audacity stumble and stammer
When seized by the throat in the hard gripe of Grammar.
But the language of languages dearest to me
Is that in which once, O ma toute cherie,
When, together, we bent o'er your nosegay for hours,
You explain'd what was silently said by the flowers,
And, selecting the sweetest of all, sent a flame
Through my heart, as, in laughing, you murmur'd
Je t'aime.

The Italians have voices like peacocks; the Spanish
Smell, I fancy, of garlic; the Swedish and Danish
Have something too Runic, too rough and unshod, in
Their accents for mouths not descended from Odin;
German gives me a cold in the head, sets me wheezing
And coughing; and Russian is nothing but sneezing;
But, by Belus and Babel! I never have heard,
And I never shall hear (I well know it), one word
Of that delicate idiom of Paris without
Feeling morally sure, beyond question or doubt,
By the wild way in which my heart inwardly flutter'd
That my heart's native tongue to my heart had been utter'd
And whene'er I hear French spoken as I approve
I feel myself quietly falling in love.”
― Owen Meredith, Lucile

“O hour of all hours, the most bless'd upon earth,
Blessed hour of our dinners!
The land of his birth;
The face of his first love; the bills that he owes;
The twaddle of friends and the venom of foes;
The sermon he heard when to church he last went;
The money he borrow'd, the money he spent;—
All of these things, a man, I believe, may forget,
And not be the worse for forgetting; but yet
Never, never, oh never! earth's luckiest sinner
Hath unpunish'd forgotten the hour of his dinner!
Indigestion, that conscience of every bad stomach,
Shall relentlessly gnaw and pursue him with some ache
Or some pain; and trouble, remorseless, his best ease,
As the Furies once troubled the sleep of Orestes.

We may live without poetry, music, and art:
We may live without conscience, and live without heart;
We may live without friends; we may live without books;
But civilized man cannot live without cooks.
He may live without books,—what is knowledge but grieving?
He may live without hope,—what is hope but deceiving?
He may live without love,—what is passion but pining?
But where is the man that can live without dining?”
― Owen Meredith, Lucile

“ALFRED
Pooh!
Pray would you have had her dress always in black,
And shut herself up in a convent, dear Jack?
Besides, 'twas my fault the engagement was broken.
JOHN.
Most likely. How was it?
ALFRED.
The tale is soon spoken.
She bored me. I show'd it. She saw it. What next?
She reproach'd. I retorted. Of course she was vex'd.
I was vex'd that she was so. She sulk'd. So did I.
If I ask'd her to sing, she look'd ready to cry.
I was contrite, submissive. She soften'd. I harden'd.
At noon I was banish'd. At eve I was pardon'd.
She said I had no heart. I said she had no reason.
I swore she talk'd nonsense. She sobb'd I talk'd treason.
In short, my dear fellow, 'twas time, as you see,
Things should come to a crisis, and finish. 'Twas she
By whom to that crisis the matter was brought.
She released me. I linger'd. I linger'd, she thought,
With too sullen an aspect. This gave me, of course,
The occasion to fly in a rage, mount my horse,
And declare myself uncomprehended. And so
We parted. The rest of the story you know.”
― Owen Meredith, Lucile

“Hitler.”
― John Toland, Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography

“Deare Cittizens, what brainßick charmes?
What outrage of dißordered armes?
Leades you to feaßt your enuious foes,
To ßee you goar'd with your owne blowes?
Proud Babylon your force doth ßcorn
Whoße ßpoyles your trophies might adorne
And Craßßus vnreunged ghoßt,
Roames wayling through the Parthian coaßt.
Doth now your hearts ßuch warre desire
As yeelds no triumphs for your hyre?
O what a world by Lands and Seas,
Mought you haue won with much more eaße.
Then halfe the bloud your weapons draines,
In ciuill ßtrife from out your vaines!”
― Thomas May, Pharsalia, Volumes 1-2

“Who frightened you? Who hurt you?

Far too young to be protecting someone, yet that's the obvious answer: What's inside that little stupid twitch and dodge? Who taught you to do that? Why would you protect the person who hurt you? So they could do it again? Does that overwhelming selfdestroyed - what? Instinct? - at such a brand new age make any real fucking sense? Were you born this fucked up? How does all that fear soak down into those brittle bones that fucking quick?

They take care of you, don't they? They protect you. And you already know that there's nothing else outside? Nothing better? What else can you do? Is that it? There's so many more good hours than bad, aren't there? Warm times, I guess, when you play and when you show off to the audience that chose you.

You do what they say. And they haven't told you what's bad yet. Right? It doesn't hurt; really, does it? And all the time passes away so quickly. Into baby time. Into what you do whenever you want time.

No one really did hurt you, did they? Why would they want to? You're too pretty. too perfect, too valuable. Aren't you?”
― Peter Sotos, Tick

“Is it not strange, that, as ye sung,
Seemed in mine ear a death-peal rung,
Such as in nunneries they toll
For some departing sister’s soul;
Say, what may this portend?”
Then first the Palmer silence broke,
(The livelong day he had not spoke)
“The death of a dear friend.”
― Sir Walter Scott

“These ookis grete be nat doun ihewe
First at a strok[e], but bi long processe.
Nor longe stories a woord may not expresse.”
― John Lydgate, The Fall of Princes

“And now (admiring that proſpect)
To Rome this ſpeech he did direct.
O ſeate of Gods! could this men ſo
Forſake thee, ere they ſaw a foe?
If thou canſt not, what Citty can
Deſerue to be fought for by man?
Well haue the higher powers repreſt,
The humors of the armed Eaſt,
From ioyning with the Hungars ſtout
And all that fierce outragious rout
Of Dakes, of Getes, and Sarmatans,
From bringing downe their bloudy bands
To thee (poore Rome) by Fortune ſpar'd
Whom fearefull Pompey durſt not gaurd.
So weakely mand, more bleſt art farre
With ciuill then with Forraigne warre.
Thus ſaid, forthwith he did inveſt
The Citty, then with feares poſſeſt:
For ſure they thought, that (in his ire)
All should haue beene conſum'd with fire,
And Temples ſhould to ruine runne,
As ſoone as hee the walles had wonne.
Such was the meaſure of their fright,
His will they conſtru'd by his might.
And in ſuch ſudden mazements weare,
That they their ſacred rites forbeare.
The common ſort to ſportings bent,
Their merry tunes turn'd to lament:
No ſpleen they had, their ſprights were ſpent
The Roman Fathers reuerend troope
In Phabus Pallace fitting, droope:
Not thither called at an houre,
By order of the Senates powre.
No Conſuls with their preſence grace
Their ſacred ſeates in ſupreme place.
Nor next to them the lawes to ſway
The Prator ſate in his array.
No Coches at the Senate gate,
That thither bring the Peeres of ſtate.
Caſar alone was all in all,
His priuate voyce the Court doth thrall.
The Fathers to his heſts giue way,
Rady his pleasure to obay.
Whether he Monarchy deſire,
Or would to ſacred rites aſpire:
Or liues of Senators would waſt,
Or them into exile would caſt.
But he (more modeſt and more milde)
Did blush his power ſhould be defil'd
More to command (with threatning feare)
Then well the Roman ſtate could beare.”
― Thomas May, Civil War