Margit Terronez > Margit's Quotes

“Jim watched them eat, his eyes fixed on every morsel that entered their mouth. When the oldest of the four soldiers had finished he scraped some burnt rice and fish scales from the side of the cooking pot. A first-class private of some forty years, with slow, careful hands, he beckoned Jim forward and handed him his mess tin. As they smoked their cigarettes the Japanese smiled to themselves, watching Jim devour the shreds of fatty rice. It was his first hot food since he had left he hospital, and the heat and greasy flavour stung his gums. Tears swam in his eyes. The Japanese soldier who had taken pity on Jim, recognising that this small boy was starving, began to laugh good-naturedly, and pulled the rubber plug from his metal water-bottle. Jim drank the clear, chlorine-flavoured liquid, so unlike the stagnant water in the taps of the Columbia Road. He choked, carefully swallowed his vomit, and tittered into his hands, grinning at the Japanese. Soon they were all laughing together, sitting back in the deep grass beside the drained swimming-pool.”
― J.G. Ballard , Empire of the Sun

“The craggy lines that made up the character in his face now seemed like scars of defeat, inflicted on him over time.”
― R.D. Ronald, The Elephant Tree

“Do you realize that all great literature is all about what a bummer it is to be a human being? Isn't it such a relief to have somebody say that?”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., A Man Without a Country

“And I think back over my own life and I realize that my own nature-the core me-essentially hasn’t changed all these years. When I wake up in the morning, for those first few moments before I remember where I am or when I am, I still feel that same way I did when I woke up at the age of five.”
― Douglas Coupland, Life After God

“Si eres pequeño y aquello de lo que te evades es grande (¿no han tenido nunca este sueño?), el único escondrijo posible es algún reducto muy pequeño en el que la cosa grande no pueda entrar. Pero lo malo es que tienes que quedarte ahí, en ese sitio tan pequeño, y a veces hasta encogerte para retroceder más aún. Estoy cansado de ese sitio tan pequeño. Estoy hasta los putos huevos de ese sitio tan diminuto. Estoy harto de que me miren sin yo enterarme. Estoy harto de todas esas ausencias.”
― Martin Amis, Money

“What destroys the dream? What destroys it, eh?..........Disappointment. Disappointment. Disappointment.”
― Anthony Burgess, The Wanting Seed

“I want to go back," Daniel says, quietly, with effort.
"Where?" I ask, unsure.
There's a long pause that kind of freaks me out and Daniel finishes his drink and fingers the sunglasses he's still wearing and says, "I don't know. Just back.”
― Bret Easton Ellis, Less Than Zero

“I was asleep when our plane hit the runway, but the jolt brought me instantly awake. I looked out the window and saw the Rocky Mountains. What the fuck was I doing here? I wondered. It made no sense at all. I decided to call my attorney as soon as possible. Have him wire me some money to buy a huge albino Doberman. Denver is a national clearing house for stolen Dobermans; they come from all parts of the country.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream

“We say that Columbus discovered America and Newton discovered gravity, as though America and gravity weren't there until Columbus and Newton got wind of them.”
― Susanna Kaysen, Girl, Interrupted

“But would you kindly ponder this question: What would your good do if
evil didn't exist, and what would the earth look like if all the shadows
disappeared? After all, shadows are cast by things and people. Here is the
shadow of my sword. But shadows also come from trees and living beings.
Do you want to strip the earth of all trees and living things just because
of your fantasy of enjoying naked light? You're stupid.”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“Round pegs in square holes tend to have dangerous thoughts about the social system and tend to infect others with their discontents.”
― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

“Have started your book. Shit, you’re smart. I’m at the edge of being totally awed; if I get in any more awe of you, I won’t be able to gossip to you especially about sex and relationships – that always fascinates me most of all. Now I’m writing like Jelinek. Fuck, I’m a style sponge.”
― Kathy Acker, I'm Very Into You: Correspondence, 1995-1996

“تضربين معصمي أماما وخلفا .. بالطريقة التي تمارسينها عندما تعجزين عن النوم ، وبرغم هذا لا تريدين لي أن أنام أنا الآخر .”
― Craig Clevenger, Dermaphoria

“Emigrate or Degenerate.”
― Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

“By now we are even unsure whether we have the right to talk about the events of our own lives.”
― Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, Books III-IV

“My enemy is twice dead, and I still have him.”
― Iain Banks, The Wasp Factory

“Since art is merely and ultimately self-expressive, we conclude that the fullest art, the most individual, uninfluenced, unrepressed, uninhibited expression of art is true expression and the true art.”
― Allen Ginsberg

“Secrets—even in hardened criminals, they were just air pockets lodged under debris at the bottom of an ocean. It might take an earthquake, or you scuba diving down there, sifting through the sludge, but their natural proclivity was always to head straight to the surface—to get out.”
― Marisha Pessl, Night Film