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“It's hell writing and it's hell not writing. The only tolerable state is having just written.”
―
―
“Many terribly quiet customers exist but none more
terribly quiet than Man
his footsteps pass so perilously soft across the sea
in marble winter
up the stiff blue waves and every Tuesday
down he grinds the unastonishable earth
with horse and shatter
shatters too the cheeks of birds and traps them in his forest headlights
salty silvers roll into his net, he weaves it just for that,
this terribly quiet customer
he dooms
animals and mountains technically
by yoke he makes the bull bend, the horse to its knees...”
―
terribly quiet than Man
his footsteps pass so perilously soft across the sea
in marble winter
up the stiff blue waves and every Tuesday
down he grinds the unastonishable earth
with horse and shatter
shatters too the cheeks of birds and traps them in his forest headlights
salty silvers roll into his net, he weaves it just for that,
this terribly quiet customer
he dooms
animals and mountains technically
by yoke he makes the bull bend, the horse to its knees...”
―
“Above all, do not lie to yourself. A man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point where he does not discern any truth either in himself or anywhere around him, and thus falls into disrespect towards himself and others. Not respecting anyone, he ceases to love, and having no love, he gives himself up to passions and coarse pleasures, in order to occupy and amuse himself, and in his vices reaches complete bestiality, and it all comes from lying continually to others and to himself. A man who lies to himself is often the first to take offense. It sometimes feels very good to take offense, doesn't it? And surely he knows that no one has offended him, and that he himself has invented the offense and told lies just for the beauty of it, that he has exaggerated for the sake of effect, that he has picked on a word and made a mountain out of a pea--he knows all of that, and still he is the first to take offense, he likes feeling offended, it gives him great pleasure, and thus he reaches the point of real hostility.”
― The Brothers Karamazov
― The Brothers Karamazov
“Sleep is light in nomad camps. The body, exhausted by space, grows warm, stretches out straight, recalls the length of the trip. The paths of the mountain ridges run like shivers along the spine. The velvet meadows burden and tickle the eyelids. Bedsores of the ravines hollow out the sides. Sleep immures you, bricks you up. Last thought: have to ride around some ridge...”
― Journey to Armenia
― Journey to Armenia
“Early in the novel that Tereza clutched under her arm when she went to visit Tomas, Anna meets Vronsky in curious circumstances: they are at the railway station when someone is run over by a train. At the end of the novel, Anna throws herself under a train. This symmetrical composition - the same motif appears at the beginning and at the end - may seem quite "novelistic" to you, and I am willing to agree, but only on condition that you refrain from reading such notions as "fictive," "fabricated," and "untrue to life" into the word "novelistic." Because human lives are composed in precisely such a fashion.
They are composed like music. Guided by his sense of beauty, an individual transforms a fortuitous occurrence (Beethoven's music, death under a train) into a motif, which then assumes a permanent place in the composition of the individual's life. Anna could have chosen another way to take her life. But the motif of death and the railway station, unforgettably bound to the birth of love, enticed her in her hour of despair with its dark beauty. Without realizing it, the individual composes his life according to the laws of beauty even in times of greatest distress.
It is wrong, then, to chide the novel for being fascinated by mysterious coincidences (like the meeting of Anna, Vronsky, the railway station, and death or the meeting of Beethoven, Tomas, Tereza, and the cognac), but it is right to chide man for being blind to such coincidences in his daily life. For he thereby deprives his life of a dimension of beauty.”
―
They are composed like music. Guided by his sense of beauty, an individual transforms a fortuitous occurrence (Beethoven's music, death under a train) into a motif, which then assumes a permanent place in the composition of the individual's life. Anna could have chosen another way to take her life. But the motif of death and the railway station, unforgettably bound to the birth of love, enticed her in her hour of despair with its dark beauty. Without realizing it, the individual composes his life according to the laws of beauty even in times of greatest distress.
It is wrong, then, to chide the novel for being fascinated by mysterious coincidences (like the meeting of Anna, Vronsky, the railway station, and death or the meeting of Beethoven, Tomas, Tereza, and the cognac), but it is right to chide man for being blind to such coincidences in his daily life. For he thereby deprives his life of a dimension of beauty.”
―
Morgan’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Morgan’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
123 books
|
134 friends
54 books
|
60 friends
141 books
|
14 friends
399 books
|
65 friends
99 books
|
51 friends
1,763 books
|
76 friends
111 books
|
24 friends
113 books
|
16 friends
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