Cain S.

“If God had been like a toad, you could have rid the globe of toads, but when God was like yourself, it was no good being content with stone figures — you had to kill yourself among the graves.”
― Graham Greene, The Power and the Glory

“[I]t seems that everyone has fallen under the thrall of this idea that we’re all writers and dramatists now, that each of us has a special voice and something very important to say, usually about a feeling we have, and all this gets expressed in the black maw of social media billions of times a day. Usually this feeling is outrage, because outrage gets attention, outrage gets clicks, outrage can make your voice heard above the deafening din of voices squalling over one another in this nightmarish new culture—and the outrage is often tied to a lunacy demanding human perfection, spotless citizens, clean and likable comrades, and requiring thousands of apologies daily. Advocating
while creating your own drama and your brand is where the game is now. And if you don’t follow the new corporate rules accordingly you are banished, exiled, erased from history.”
― Bret Easton Ellis, White

“The images selected by memory are as arbitrary, as narrow, as elusive as those which the imagination had formed and reality has destroyed. There is no reason why, existing outside ourselves, a real place should conform to the pictures in our memory rather than those in our dreams. And besides, a fresh reality will perhaps make us forget, detest even, the desires on account of which we set out on our journey.”
― Marcel Proust, In Search Of Lost Time 4: The Captive

“Professionals who've spent their energy teaching masterpieces, the few of us still engrossed by literature's scrutiny of things, have no excuse for finding betrayal anywhere but at the heart of history. History from top to bottom. World history, family history, personal history. It's a very big subject, betrayal. Just think of the Bible. What's that book about? The master story situation of the Bible is betrayal. Adam—betrayed. Esau—betrayed. The Shechemite—betrayed. Judah—betrayed. Joseph—betrayed. Moses—betrayed. Samson—betrayed. Samuel—betrayed. David—betrayed. Uriah—betrayed. Job—betrayed. Job betrayed by whom? By none other than God himself. And don't forget the betrayal of God. God betrayed. Betrayed by our ancestors at every turn.”
― Philip Roth, I Married a Communist