Juliano Dutra

“I need to find out why my grandfather is . . . acting strange.’ ‘Can’t you ask him?’ ‘He won’t tell me!’ ‘Does he throw up a lot?’ ‘I shouldn’t think so. He doesn’t often eat. The occasional curry, once or twice a month.’ ‘He must be pretty thin.’ ‘You’ve no idea.’ ‘Well, then . . . Does he often stare at himself in the mirror and say “Arrgh”? Or stick out his tongue and wonder why it’s gone yellow? You see, it’s possible I might have some measure of influence over people who are hung over. If he’s been drinking a lot, I might be able to find him.’ ‘I can’t see him doing any of those things. I think I’d better tell you . . . My grandfather is Death.’ ‘Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.’ ‘I said Death.’ ‘Sorry?’ ‘Death. You know . . . Death?’ ‘You mean the robes, the—’ ‘—scythe, white horse, bones . . . yes. Death.’ ‘I just want to make sure I’ve got this clear,’ said the oh god in a reasonable tone of voice. ‘You think your grandfather is Death and you think he’s acting strange?”
― Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

“My hometown was full of heroes and villains, honest people who knew the beauty of truth and others whose beauty was a lie.”
― Robert R. McCammon, Boy's Life

“In the first half of the century, the most popular of all the books written about poverty was, however, not an earnest social tract, but The Mysteries of Paris. It was written by Eugène Sue (1804–57), who served as a military surgeon in the French invasion of Spain in 1823, and was present at the Battle of Navarino in 1827 during the Greek War of Independence. Sue wrote Romantic, sensationalist stories with subjects featuring pirates and bandits, and in his novel Mathilde (1841) coined the saying ‘revenge is a dish best served cold’.”
― Richard J. Evans, The Pursuit of Power: Europe, 1815-1914

“But before William Stoner the future lay bright and certain and unchanging. He saw it, not as a flux of event and change and potentiality, but as a territory ahead that awaited his exploration. He saw it as the great University library, to which new wings might be built, to which new books might be added and from which old ones might be withdrawn, while its true nature remained essentially unchanged. He saw the future in the institution to which he had committed himself and which he so imperfectly understood; he conceived himself changing in that future, but he saw the future itself as the instrument of change rather than its object.”
― John Williams, Stoner