Hazel Cline

“It would seem that marsupials are poor imitations of full-fledged mammals. Their inadequacy gives them a certain appeal; we’re touched by it.”
― Kōbō Abe, Kangaroo Notebook

“I love everything that is old; old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wines.”
― Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield

“Not long ago-incredible though it may seem-I heard a clerk of Oxford declare that he 'welcomed' the proximity of mass-production robot factories, and the roar of self-obstructive traffic, because it brought his university into 'contact with real life.' He may have meant that the way men were living and working in the twentieth century was increasing in barbarity at an alarming rate, and that the loud demonstration of this in the streets of Oxford might serve as a warning that it is not possible to preserve for long an oasis of sanity in a desert of unreason by mere fences, without actual offensive action (practical and intellectual). I fear he did not. In any case the expression 'real life' in this context seems to fall short of academic standards. The notion that motor-cars are more 'alive' than, say, centaurs or dragons is curious; that they are more 'real' than, say, horses is pathetically absurd. How real, how startlingly alive is a factory chimney compared with an elm tree: poor obsolete thing, insubstantial dream of an escapist!”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, Tree and Leaf: Includes Mythopoeia and The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth

“Gussie, a glutton for punishment, stared at himself in the mirror.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, Right Ho, Jeeves