Prahelika

“He thinks with distracted affection of himself, the young Louis Waters, who spent his youth trying to live with Richard, who was variously flattered and enraged by Richard's indefatigable worship of his arms and his ass, and who left Richard finally, forever, after a fight in the train station in Rome (had it been specifically about the letter Richard received from Clarissa, or about Louis's more general sense of exhausted interest in being the more blessed, less brilliant member?). That Louis, only twenty-eight but convinced of his advanced age and
missed opportunities, had walked away from Richard and gotten on a train that turned out to be going to Madrid. It had seemed, at the time, a dramatic but temporary gesture, and as the train steamed along
(the conductor had informed him, indignantly, where he was headed) he'd been strangely, almost
preternaturally content. He'd been free. Now he scarcely remembers his aimless days in Madrid; he does not even remember with great clarity the Italian boy (could his name actually have been Franco?) who convinced him to finally abandon the long, doomed project of loving Richard, in favor of simpler passions. What he remembers with perfect clarity is sitting on a train headed for Madrid, feeling the sort of happiness he imagined spirits might feel, freed of their earthly bodies but still
possessed of their essential selves.”
― Michael Cunningham, The Hours

“She always surprises you this way, by knowing more than you think she does. Louis wonders if
they're calculated, these little demonstrations of self-knowledge that pepper Clarissa's wise, hostessy
performance. She seems, at times, to have read your thoughts. She disarms you by saying, essentially,
I know what you're thinking and I agree, I'm ridiculous, I'm far less than I could have been and I'd like
it to be otherwise but I can't seem to help myself. You find that you move, almost against your will,
from being irritated with her to consoling her, helping her back into her performance so that she can
be comfortable again and you can resume feeling irritated.”
― Michael Cunningham, The Hours

“Women are the only human beings outside the realm of political interest and the career of ambition, able to pour scorn on base actions, point out ingratitude, and honor even disgrace if that disgrace is caused by noble
sentiments.”
― Germaine de Staël

“You are quite right in saying that the influence of poetry and literature appears at this moment diminishing rather than increasing. The newspapers have a good deal to do with this. The Times, which has much improved again, is a world, and people who read it daily hardly feel the necessity for reading a book; yet reading a book—a good book—is a discipline such as no reading of even good newspapers can ever give. But literature has in itself such powers of attraction that I am not over anxious about it.”
― Mathew Arnold