Raphael Noll

“It is for the reader to see in the book the nature of the motives of human actions and perhaps learn something too of the motives behind the social forces which judge those actions and which, I take it, we call a system of morality.”
― Anthony Burgess, Earthly Powers

“Stalin's mental journey, by 1943, proceeded in the opposite direction to that of Hitler. One moved toward reality; the other moved away from it. They crossed paths at Stalingrad. And as the war turned on the hinge of that battle (and on the new psychological opposition), Stalin might have concerned himself with a "counterfactual": if, instead of decapitating his army, he had intelligently prepared it for war, Russia might have defeated Germany in a matter of weeks. Such a course of action, while no doubt entailing grave consequences of its own, would have saved about 40 million lives, including the vast majority of the victims of the Holocaust.”
― Martin Amis, Koba the Dread: Laughter and the Twenty Million

“Sugar," Tara said in a voice that was pure Pissed-Off South. "You need to go far, far away."

A few weeks ago, he'd have taken that to mean she didn't want to see his face within a six-hundred-mile radius. Now he knew the truth. He distracted her. He could live with that. "Came to see if I can help."

"I think I know how to make burgers," she said smoothly. "But bless your heart."

In other words, f*** off and die.”
― Jill Shalvis, The Sweetest Thing

“My eyes are up here, Declan."
"I'm aware," I reply lazily without looking up.”
― Kristen Proby, Easy Melody