Kelly > Recent Status Updates

“…had thought that instead of needing to know what he should do, he should by this time know that he needed to do nothing…and all this was to have come without study or other inconvenience purely by the favour of providence.” p342-3

“…an accomplished creature who venerated his high musings and labours and would never interfere with them; who would create order in the home and accounts with magic.” p352

Feeling a little bit convicted on the perfectionism I’m witnessing so far…

“We are all humiliated by the sudden discovery of a fact which has existed very comfortably and perhaps been staring at us in private while we have been making up our world entirely without it.” p332

Mary too, was agitated: she was conscious that fatally, without will of her own, she had perhaps made a great difference to Fred’s lot.” p340

“One is constantly wondering what sort of lives other people lead, and how they take things.” p326

“Mr. Casaubon, indeed, had not thoroughly represented those mixed reasons to himself; irritated feeling with him, as with all of us, seeking rather for justification than for self-knowledge.” p329

Everything is symbolical you know…but not too far - it’s rather straining to keep up with, you know.” p330

“All his work, and it hadn’t saved anyone, or slowed the moment of their going by a minute.” p804

“It was during the Captain’s absence that Newt discovered a talent for breaking horses.” p815

“…(Gus) looked relieved. I’ve never forgot it…he saw it would be a struggle if he won me, and he didn’t want it.” p826

“I should have married again. Two wives ain’t very many. Solomon beat me by several hundred, although I’ve got the same equipment he had…I was working in my head, you see, I was trying to figure out life.” p737

“It seemed to her she had better not form the practice of ignoring death…it would take another of her loved ones to remind her to respect it.” p747

“You’ll end up bearshit.” p760

“To the huge astonishment of her girls, Clara walked straight off the porch and into the stranger’s arms…and kissed him right on the mouth.” p690

“But in Clara’s house, she wasn’t afraid to remember her grandmother and the softness of the bed.” p706

“This goddamn country has burned up my tears.” (The Irishman said) p720

“It will get dry” Po Campo insisted. “We will be drinking horse’s blood if we’re not lucky.” p668

“You wouldn’t” he said, meaning to tell the man not to kick, but the boot hit his face before he could get his words out…he spat out blood and teeth.” p672

“This was what (Lorena) had done all those months at the Dry Bean, with any man who had drawn his wages.” p683

“It was wearying, adjusting to all the paces life required.” p604

“But he’s a man,” …Their father had never cried, as far as she knew.
“Men have tears in them too, same as you,” Clara said. p623

You can’t avoid it, you’ve got to learn to handle it…if you only come face to face with your own mistakes once or twice in your life, it’s bound to be extra painful. I face mine every day...” p633

“…reflecting that he had cried more in the last few weeks than his whole life up to that point.” p534

“It’s humbling. I lived through the worst war ever fought and then got killed by a damn horse thief. That galls me.” p564

“The earth is mostly just a boneyard.” p573

“Life works out peculiar…if he hadn’t talked you into making this trip, we wouldn’t have had to hang him today.” p585

“Elmira wished she was a man so she could just buy a horse and ride away.” p420

“…often recovery came too late if the captives were women. Usually their minds were gone and they were only interested in dying, which they mostly did once they got back to people who would let them die.” p443

“Loss of life always is. But the life is lost for good. Don’t you go attempting vengeance.” p464

“Lorena began to wish there was some way to just die…but it wasn’t death she got - just the four men.” p390-1

“It ought to be a hanging crime for the post office to work so slow..” p394

“If only he could be in the sky and use the stars like stepping-stones.” p397

“…naked and wet, sure to be murdered unless a slip of a girl, armed only with rocks, could defeat two men armed with guns.” p411

“He says it ain’t civilized to ride animals.”
“Why, the man’s a philosopher,” Augustus said. p374

“Dern, this is the best birds’-egg pie I ever tasted”…”Don’t you know an omelet when you see one, Jasper?” p375

“My wife was good at making biscuits.”
“Where is she?”
“She lives in hell, where I sent her.” p376

“…since we chased out the Indians and hung all the good bandits,” Augustus said. “Does it ever occur to you that everything we done was probably a mistake?” p323

“I don’t guess I’ve watched you punish yourself for thirty years to be totally wrong about you. I just don’t know what you done to deserve the punishment.” p345

“(Call) had begun…to talk out loud to her when they were alone.” p348

“Though he had see much violet death, he had not seen one more terrible than the one that had just occurred.” p284

“It’s a great mistake to hurry…Because the grave’s our destination…those who hurry usually get to it quicker than those who take their time.” p309

“Wrong theory,” Augustus said. “Talk’s the way to kill it. Anything gets boring if you talk about it enough, even death” p311

“The end that’s fated waits for both the free
and those that live beneath a master’s hand.” Lines 103-4

“Soon now, Time, who finishes everything,
will leave by the courtyard gate,…”
Lines 965-66

Quite a bloodbath, this trilogy. The Greeks were way ahead of Tarantino. Future re-read will be the Fagles translation. The Greek Plays tragedy compendium editors are just awkward.

“Where do you reckon Jake will end up?” Call asked.
“In a hole in the ground, like you and me,”Augustus said.” p226

“…driving all these skinny cattle all that way is a funny way to maintain an interest in life…you should have died in the line of duty, Woodrow. You’d know how to do that fine. The problem is you don’t know how to live.” p227

Agamemnon has a long introduction to get underway but overall is enjoyable. I watched an old 1983 Peter Hall production on YouTube to familiarize before reading and it really helped to know the plot and focus in the details. Also glad to be familiar with Homer beforehand too.

“Captain Call’s trust, which he had never really expected to earn, had immediately become excessive.” 119

“You have to soak them beans,” he said. “Soak them a while and it softens them up.” p122

“That’s what we done, you know. Kilt the dern Indians so they wouldn’t bother the bankers…squeezed on to some reservation so the lawyers and bankers can come in and get civilization started.” p84

“It looked like the easy life was over for a while. Call had idled too long, and now he was ready to make up for it by working six times as hard as a human should work.” p106

“The eastern sky was red as coals in a forge, lighting up the flats along the river. Dew had wet the million needles of the chaparral, and when the rim of the sun edged over the horizon the chaparral seemed to be spotted with diamonds.” p54

“…and it was an irritation to see Augustus…looking as fresh as if he’d slept all night, when in fact he’d probably played poker till one or two o’clock.” p55

“I can work and think too,” Call said. “You’re the only man I know whose brain don’t work unless it’s in the shade.” p22

“That was what Augustus wanted: argument. He didn’t really care what the question was, and it made no great difference to him which side he was on.” p24

“He liked to get off by himself, a mile or so from the camp, and listen to the country, not the men.” p26

"Mary was fond of her own thoughts, and could amuse herself well sitting in twilight with her hands in her lap; for, having early had strong reason to believe that things were not likely to be arranged for her peculiar satisfaction, she wasted no time in astonishment and annoyance at that fact." p314

"I cannot help that, sir. I will not let the close of your life soil the beginning of mine." p316

“…(there are such troublesome people in most families; perhaps even in the highest aristocracy there are Brobdingnag specimens, gigantically in debt…)…the troublesome ones in a family are usually either the wits or the idiots.” p305 🙌🏻

…against false opinion, of which there is so much to correct in the world that a man of some reading and experience necessarily has his patience tried.” p310

“He was coming to England to try his fortune, as many other young men were obliged to do whose only capital was in their brains.” p275

“Anyone who imagines ten days is too short a time…is ignorant of what can go on in the elegant leisure of a young lady’s mind.” p300

“Remember that the ambitious man who was looking at those Forget-me-nots under the water was very warm-hearted and rash.” p301

“…the stifling oppression of that gentlewoman’s world, where everything was done for her and none asked her aid…marriage…had not yet freed her from the gentlewoman’s oppressive liberty.” p274 ❤️

“…and to have a discussion coolly waived when you feel that justice is all on your own side is even more exasperating in marriage than in philosophy.” p283 😆