Vincent

“When a human being develops an argument, when a human being attempts not only to think but to speak with precision, he or she is often made to feel that this is a mark of social inadequacy and that there is something comical about it. The younger the human being, the more humorous it becomes. So that humans whose inclination it is to think and speak in this way become self-conscious from an early age, and a kind of minstrelisation creeps in.”
― Helen DeWitt, Some Trick: Thirteen Stories

“All the world's a zoo, and all the men and women merely animals.”
― Benjamin Hale, The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore

“It’s not against Lottery regulations to lose, obviously - somebody’s got to - but it’s against the Rules to be seen to lose. It’s against the Rules to be seen to win. It’s not just that you break the Rules by sitting there. It’s that you put everyone else in the position of ostentatious Rulebreakers, manoeuvred into flashing their luck just by walking to work.”
― Helen DeWitt, Your Name Here

“The cheers died away in the soft grey air. He was alone. He was happy and free; but he would not be anyway proud with Father Dolan. He would be very quiet and obedient: and he wished that he could do something kind for him to show him that he was not proud.”
― James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man