Sabrina

“[...]to be real--to become fluent, natural, to cut out the detour that sweeps us around what's fundamental to events, preventing us from touching their core: the detour that makes us all second-hand and second-rate.”
― Tom McCarthy, Remainder

“This is what I don't understand. it was her idea—no, it was my idea. But she more than went along with it. She didn't have to stick her ass out. She didn't have to do anything. None of them had to."
"Quinn", I said. "I would never say this in public. I wouldn't say it to anybody but you. And maybe Todd. But listen. Women are like horses. They want to be led. They want to be led, but they also want to be respected. You have to earn it, every time. And they are strong as fuck. If you don't respect them, they will throw you off and prance around the paddock while you lie there bleeding. That's what I think.”
― Mary Gaitskill, This Is Pleasure: A Story

“I stopped right in the middle of the road. There was no traffic. Before heading back towards my flat to get the number I paused for a while, I don't know how long, and stood in what had been the marksmen's sightlines. I turned the palms of my hands outwards, closed my eyes and thought about that memory of just before the accident, being buffeted by wind. Remembering it sent a tingling from the top of my legs to my shoulders and right up into my neck. It lasted for just a moment-but while it did it felt not-neutral. I felt different, intense: both intense and serene at the same time. I remember feeling this way very well: standing there, passive, with my palms turned outwards, feeling intense and serene.”
― Tom McCarthy, Remainder

“Sex is a different medium, refracting time and sense, a biological hyperspace as remote from conscious existence as dreams, or as water is from air. As his mother used to say, another element; the day is changed, Henry, when you take a swim. And that day is bound to be marked out from all the rest.”
― Ian McEwan, Saturday