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“As far as history goes I am dead. If there is something beyond I shall have to bounce back. I have found God, but he is insufficient. I am only spiritually dead. Physically I am alive. Morally I am free. The world which I have departed is a menagerie. The dawn is breaking on a new world, a jungle world in which lean spirits roam with sharp claws. If a am a hyena I am a lean and hungry one: I go forth to fatten myself.”
― Tropic of Cancer
― Tropic of Cancer
“A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.”
― Dubliners
― Dubliners
“Where did the genius come from? Where did it go?
Like allowing another lover into the house to live with you, someone you’d never met but whom you knew he loved more than you.
Poetry every day. A novel every few years. Something happened in that room, despite everything; something beautiful happened. It was the only place in the world where time made things better.”
― Less
Like allowing another lover into the house to live with you, someone you’d never met but whom you knew he loved more than you.
Poetry every day. A novel every few years. Something happened in that room, despite everything; something beautiful happened. It was the only place in the world where time made things better.”
― Less
“There is so much ignorant prejudice against bees in a dining-room.”
― Post Captain
― Post Captain
“When they had arranged their blankets the boy lowered the lamp and stepped into the yard and pulled the door shut behind, leaving them in profound and absolute darkness.
No one moved. In that cold stable the shutting of the door may have evoked in some hearts other hostels and not of their choosing. The mare sniffed uneasily and the young colt stepped about. Then one by one they began to divest themselves of their outer clothes, the hide slickers and raw wool serapes and vests, and one by one they propagated about themselves a great crackling of sparks and each man was seen to wear a shroud of palest fire. Their arms aloft pulling at their clothes were luminous and each obscure soul was enveloped in audible shapes of light as if it had always been so. The mare at the far end of the stable snorted and shied at this luminosity in beings so endarkened and the little horse turned and hid his face in the web of his dam's flank.”
― Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West
No one moved. In that cold stable the shutting of the door may have evoked in some hearts other hostels and not of their choosing. The mare sniffed uneasily and the young colt stepped about. Then one by one they began to divest themselves of their outer clothes, the hide slickers and raw wool serapes and vests, and one by one they propagated about themselves a great crackling of sparks and each man was seen to wear a shroud of palest fire. Their arms aloft pulling at their clothes were luminous and each obscure soul was enveloped in audible shapes of light as if it had always been so. The mare at the far end of the stable snorted and shied at this luminosity in beings so endarkened and the little horse turned and hid his face in the web of his dam's flank.”
― Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West
21st Century Literature
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We read literary fiction from 2000 to present, with the intent of finding those literary gems of timeless and enduring quality. We're less focused o ...more
The Mookse and the Gripes
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Forum for spirited and convivial discussion of fiction from around the world, with particular though not exclusive focus on 20th and 21st century fict ...more
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