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“This anti-description, for want of a better way of putting it, had made something clear to her by a reverse kind of exposition: while he talked she began to see herself as a shape, an outline, with all the detail filled in around it while the shape itself remained blank. Yet this shape, even while its content remained unknown, gave her for the first time since the incident a sense of who she now was.”
― Outline
― Outline
“I kept looking around the bleachers at the audience, middle-aged people in practical clothes. Every single one of them cared about love, but how much? A lot, or only a little bit? The opera went on for a long time. Eventually the two youngest people onstage got married, so we could all go home.”
― The Idiot
― The Idiot
“What did you bring your host family?'
'Chocolate.'
'Chocolate.' She sighed.
'I'm afraid I'll accidentally eat it all before I get there,' I said, following the rule that you had to pretend to have this problem where you couldn't resist chocolate.”
― The Idiot
'Chocolate.'
'Chocolate.' She sighed.
'I'm afraid I'll accidentally eat it all before I get there,' I said, following the rule that you had to pretend to have this problem where you couldn't resist chocolate.”
― The Idiot
“She scraped her spoon around the bottom of the honey jar. She was aware, she said, that this was also a cultural malaise, but it had invaded her inner world to the extent that she felt herself summed up, and was beginning to question the point of continuing to exist day in and day out when 'Anne's life' just about covered it.”
― Outline
― Outline
“Svetlana said that she identified with that Madonna more than with any other woman in any other painting. She kept asking me what painting I identified with. I didn't identify with anyone in any paintings.
I finally identified with a painting in the Picasso Museum. Titled Le Buffet de Vauvenargues, it showed a gigantic black sideboard [...]
Svetlana said I had to take a more proactive view of my personhood. She said it wasn't okay to identify with furniture. Indeed, Sartre had illustrated "bad faith" using the analogy of thinking of oneself as a chair -- quite specifically, a chair. Objective claims could be made about a chair, but not about a person, because a person was in constant flux. I said the buffet was also in flux.”
― The Idiot
I finally identified with a painting in the Picasso Museum. Titled Le Buffet de Vauvenargues, it showed a gigantic black sideboard [...]
Svetlana said I had to take a more proactive view of my personhood. She said it wasn't okay to identify with furniture. Indeed, Sartre had illustrated "bad faith" using the analogy of thinking of oneself as a chair -- quite specifically, a chair. Objective claims could be made about a chair, but not about a person, because a person was in constant flux. I said the buffet was also in flux.”
― The Idiot
The Best Book Club on Earth
— 8 members
— last activity Nov 20, 2017 12:51PM
The official Goodreads group for the official Best Book Club on Earth.
Matt’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Matt’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
327 books
|
153 friends
1,084 books
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159 friends
194 books
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422 friends
889 books
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65 friends
75 books
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692 friends
343 books
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128 friends
561 books
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144 friends
199 books
|
12 friends
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