Michael Staten

“I imagined I had discovered a new word. I rise up in bed and say, "It is not in the language; I have discovered it. 'Kuboa.' It has letters as a word has. By the benign God, Man you have discovered a word!... 'Kuboa' ... a word of profound import.

[...]

Some minutes pass over, and I wax nervous; this new word torments me unceasingly, returns again and again, takes up my thoughts, and makes me serious. I had fully formed an opinion as to what it should not signify, but had come to no conclusion as to what it should signify.

[...]

Then it seems to me that some one is interposing, interrupting my confab. I answer angrily, "Beg pardon! You match in idiocy is not to be found; no, sir! Knitting cotton? Ah! go to hell!" Well, really I had to laugh. Might I ask why should I be forced to let it signify knitting cotton, when I had a special dislike to its signifying knitting cotton?”
― Knut Hamsun, Hunger

“...estou que muita mais gente poria termo aos seus dias, se pudesse achar essa espécie de cocaína moral dos bons livros”
― Machado de Assis, Dom Casmurro

“I said, smiling very wide and droogie: ‘Well, if it isn’t fat stinking billygoat Billyboy in poison. How art thou, thou globby bottle of cheap stinking chip-oil? Come and get one in the yarbles, if you have any yarbles, you eunuch jelly, thou.’ And then we started.”
― Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange

“Some lesser husbands built a latrine on the hillside.”
― V.S. Naipaul, A House for Mr Biswas