Tavie

“It must have been a decade since the Count had first promised himself to read this work of universal acclaim that his father had held so dear. And yet, every time he had pointed his finger at his calendar and declared: This is the month in which I shall devote myself to the Essays of Michel de Montaigne! some devilish aspect of life had poked its head in the door. From an unexpected corner had come an expression of romantic interest, which could not in good conscience be ignored. Or his banker had called. Or the circus had come to town. Life will entice, after all. But here, at last, circumstance had conspired not to distract the Count, but to present him with the time and solitude necessary to give the book its due.”
― Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow

“The following weekend, Eric called my family and asked if we could come over to his apartment. When we got there, there was a brand-new synthesizer keyboard for me with a bow on it. And Robin Williams. I didn’t know until that moment that Robin Williams was to play the part of the King of the Moon. I was a huge fan of Mork & Mindy and I felt weak with happiness to get to be in his presence. I spent the day with Robin and Eric. Robin programmed himself doing different voices on all the effects keys, so I could play whole songs entirely in his voice. That day we walked around Rome, ate gelato, and went to the Vatican and St. Peter’s Square while Robin did impressions of the Pope and kept me laughing all day. From that day forward, both Eric and Robin seemed to have an agenda to make light moments for me. When it was possible, when the world around us wasn’t exploding and crumbling and freezing, they made up games for me, sang songs, and treated the set as a playground.”
― Sarah Polley, Run Towards the Danger: Confrontations with a Body of Memory

“The Kids in the Hall were doing everything pretty much right in my book. Their show hung together, was distinctive, really likable, and you got to know them even while they were playing stridently strange characters. Plus they had a number of homes for the show, all in off-brand time slots and locales—right where it belonged. This made me envious and mad. Not at the guys—I liked them all—but at Canada in general. Somehow they were able to bring Canadian niceness to the brain-warping comic mayhem. How much maple syrup do I have to drink to become that nonthreatening? There isn’t enough in the world.”
― Bob Odenkirk, Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama

“People talk about the happy quiet that can exist between two loves, but this, too, was great; sitting between his sister and his brother, saying nothing, eating. Before the world existed, before it was populated, and before there were wars and jobs and colleges and movies and clothes and opinions and foreign travel -- before all of these things there had been only one person, Zora, and only one place: a tent in the living room made from chairs and bed-sheets. After a few years, Levi arrived; space was made for him; it was as if he had always been. Looking at them both now, Jerome found himself in their finger joints and neat conch ears, in their long legs and wild curls. He heard himself in their partial lisps caused by puffy tongues vibrating against slightly noticeable buckteeth. He did not consider if or how or why he loved them. They were just love: they were the first evidence he ever had of love, and they would be the last confirmation of love when everything else fell away.”
― Zadie Smith, On Beauty