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“I wish I could leave you certain of the images in my mind, because they are so beautiful that I hate to think they will be extinguished when I am. Well, but again, this life has its own mortal loveliness. And memory is not strictly mortal in its nature, either. It is a strange thing, after all, to be able to return to a moment, when it can hardly be said to have any reality at all, even in its passing. A moment is such a slight thing. I mean, that its abiding is a most gracious reprieve.”
― Gilead
― Gilead
“...But, all the same, it's a fine thing to go along waiting for what will happen next, crossing mountains, making your way through woods, climbing over cliffs, visiting castles, and putting up at inns free of charge, and the devil take the maravedi that is to pay.”
― Don Quixote
― Don Quixote
“People should not make a virtue out of their sensitivity. They may experience it and preserve it as it was experienced. But they should not adorn themselves with it. Sensitivity will make an addict out of anyone who displays its medals on his chest. He will require more and more objects to enable him to demonstrate his sensitivity, and if he runs out of them, he will simply make things up - and his sensitivity will then reveal itself for what it is: precious, brittle, and rotted through and through.”
― The Agony of Flies: Notes and Notations
― The Agony of Flies: Notes and Notations
“There’s nothing that people rebel more against, I told Jacques, than being forced to acknowledge the secret and immediate power their fellow human beings have over them. There’s maybe nothing more common, routine. A savage power, as indifferent as a thunderbolt, where intellect, merit, beauty, language are nothing but animal electricity, a polarity that suddenly develops. Falling under the spell. Forever. We never talk about it—it’s taboo.”
― A Dark Stranger
― A Dark Stranger
“In every area of life there's nothing but chaos. Wherever we turn there's chaos, in the sciences there's chaos, in politics, it's chaos, whatever we do, it's all chaotic, wherever we look, purely chaotic conditions, chaotic conditions are all we ever have to deal with. Because everything is being done precipitately, in a rush. In such a time of precipitateness and overhastiness and the consequent chaotic conditions a thinking man should never act precipitately or overhastily in anything that concerns him, but every single one of us constantly acts precipitately, overhastily, in every way.”
― Correction
― Correction
Loosed in Translation
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Are you interested in world literature, and works in translation? Come here for recommendations, resources, links, advice on who the best translator o ...more
Peter’s 2024 Year in Books
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