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“But when the self speaks to the self, who is speaking?—the entombed soul, the spirit driven in, in, in to the central catacomb; the self that took the veil and left the world—a coward perhaps, yet somehow beautiful, as it flits with its lantern restlessly up and down the dark corridors.”

“My fits of jealousy were intense, but brief: in an instant would tear down everything, but in the same instant I would reconstruct the sky, the earth and the stars.
The truth is I grew fonder of Capitú, if that is possible, she more tender, the air more balmy, the nights more bright, and God more God.”

“One of the sacrifices that I make to this hard necessity is the analysis of my seventeen-year-old emotions. I do not know if you were once seventeen. If you were, you must know that it is an age in which a half-man and a half-child form a curious whole. I was a most curious whole, as my dependent José Dias would say, and he would not be far wrong.”

“. . . O sweet companion of my childish days, I was pure, pure I remained and pure I entered the halls of Sao José to seek, in appearance, the sacerdotal investiture; and before it, the call. But the call was you; the investiture, you.”

“Timidity is not such vile coin as it is represented. If I had been without fear, it is likely that with the indignation I felt, I would have burst out and called him a liar; but then it would have been necessary to admit that I had been eaves-dropping, and one action would have offset the other. I contented myself with replying that it was not too late.”

He’s just a shy lil baby in love…

“"What is chastity then? I mean is it good, or is it bad, or is it nothing at all?" She replied so low that I could not catch what she said. […] “The only reason why we escaped with our lives over and over again is that men are at once so hungry and so chivalrous. They despise us too much to mind what we say."”

Was not expecting feminist social commentary but I’m pleasantly surprised

“"Why," she asked, "if men write such rubbish as this, should our mothers have wasted their youth in bringing them into the world?"

We were all silent; and, in the silence, poor Poll could be heard sobbing out, "Why, why did my father teach me to read?"”

Woolf is a comedian 😭

“José Dias loved superlatives. It was a means of giving a monumental aspect to his ideas; when he had no ideas, it served to prolong his phrases. […] He walked off with his usual slow step—not the dragging slowness of a lazy man, but a calculated, deliberate slowness, a complete syllogism, the major premise before the minor, the minor premise before the conclusion. A most unpleasant duty!”

'It’s tomorrow. Skippy’s bare-legged at the edge of the pool, chlorine and earliness stinging his eyes. Outside the morning is a grey fuzz, the first shapes just beginning to emerge from it.'

Paul Murray I wasn’t familiar with your game

“ 'Do you know why I hate you? You and every other man in the world? Because you ask so much of us, as if it were your natural right …”

“that I made of a man like you my ideal! the ideal of my life!
Sir Robert Chiltern: There was your mistake. There was your error. The error all women commit. Why can't you women love us, faults and all? Why do you place us on monstrous pedestals?”

“[…] know is that life cannot be understood without much charity, cannot be lived without much charity. It is love, and not German philosophy, that is the true explanation of this world, whatever may be the explanation of the next.”

‘So this is Europe,' I said to myself. 'Why all the fuss?'

Average Berlin experience

“At the same time, and in one flash, this drawing explained Raif Efendi to me. For now I could well understand his unwavering serenity and his reluctance to form relationships. For how could a man so intimately acquainted with his surroundings, and so clear and sharp in his observations of others, ever know anger or excitement?

“He would fail with them just as he had failed with the girl in the pantry. He had taken up a wrong tone. His whole speech was a mistake from first to last, an utter failure.”

Me too Gabriel, me too

“HANNIBAL
Was there ever a cause too lost,
Ever a cause that was lost too long,
Or that showed with the lapse of time too vain
For the generous tears of youth and song?”

“Tree at my window, window tree,
My sash is lowered when night comes on;
But let there never be curtain drawn
Between you and me.”

“Blood has been harder to dam back than water.
Just when we think we have it impounded safe
Behind new barrier walls (and let it chafe!),
It breaks away in some new land of slaughter.”

At most he thinks or twitters softly, "Safe!
Now let the night be dark for all of me.
Let the night be too dark for me to see
Into the future. Let what will be be."

“until i can roar in the whispers i send to you / that i want to write / i must first be taught to court the stars at night / to twist the moon […]”

“[…] for the time being he must remain calm, he must show patience and the greatest consideration so that his family could bear the unpleasantness that he, in his present condition, was forced to impose on them.”

Even as a bug Gregor’s suffering from eldest daughter syndrome

“Earth
O lacerated Earth the rivers mended you
I prefer night and day in the sphinxeries
To know at last I am devoured there”


“'The sunset gargled by the sea
Where seamen pined
The sails and masts are greenery again”

“'The sheep are gone into the snow
Flakes of wool and tufts of money
Soldiers go by and if only I
Had a changing heart of my own
Changing but I know nothing”

“O Ocean distend into darkness
Eyes of dogfish prowl till dawn
Cadavers of days are scavenged by starlight
In the noise of the waves the death of the heart”

…

“Mais le canal était désert
Le quai aussi et nul ne vit
Comment mes baisers retrouvèrent
Celle à qui j’ai donné ma vie
Un jour pendant plus de deux heure”

“'And also I up close am lusterless
A miasma come to dim the lanterns
A sudden hand across the eyes'”

“Puis les marmitons apportèrent les viandes
Des rôtis de pensées mortes dans mon cerveau
Mes beaux rêves mort-nés en tranches bien saignantes
Et mes souvenirs faisandés en godiveaux”

“Ils cueillent les colchiques qui sont comme des mères
Filles de leurs filles et sont couleur de tes paupières
Qui battent comme les fleurs battent au vent dément

Le gardien du troupeau chante tout doucement
Tandis que lentes et meuglant les vaches abandonnent
Pour toujours ce grand pré mal fleuri par l’automne“

“'Et je chantais cette romance
En 1903 sans savoir
Que mon amour à la semblance
Du beau Phénix s’il meurt un soir
Le matin voit sa renaissance.'“

“I told her Maman had died. She wanted to know how long ago, so I said, “Yesterday.” She gave a little start but didn’t say anything. I felt like telling her it wasn’t my fault, but I stopped myself because I remembered that I’d already said that to my boss. It didn’t mean anything. Besides, you always feel a little guilty.”

“He does not seem to have the gift of hardness.”

Except when it comes to Melanie…?