Abdul’s Reviews > The White Castle > Status Update

"He'd said we could not be reformed, that if we were to survive our only alternative was to submit immediately, and after this we would not be able to do anything for centuries but imitate those to whom we had surrendered."

"...yes, He had indeed wanted, very much, to save us. This did not mean there was no evil in Him. All genius was like that!"

1/2 "I loved Him, I loved Him the way I loved that helpless, wretched ghost of my own self I saw in my dreams, as if choking on the shame, rage, sinfulness, and melancholy of that ghost, as if overcome with shame at the sight of a wild animal dying in pain, or enraged by the selfishness of a spoilt son of my own. And perhaps most of all I loved Him with the stupid revulsion and stupid joy of knowing myself..."

2/2 "...that this would make me unhappy for the rest of my days; I knew then that I would never be able to live alone: it was as if in the dead of night, along with my story, the shadow of an alluring phantom had fallen across the room, arousing our curiosity while it put us both on guard."

1/2 "And I, I was thinking of my own life, of Him, of how I loved the story I'd created; and I felt pride in everything I had lived and dreamed of: the room we were sitting in overflowed with the sad memories of all that both of us had once wanted to be and what we had become; it was then I understood clearly for the first time that I would never again be able to forget Him..."

"Don't they have any corner inside their heads for storing knowledge?" he said, and looked around as if searching for the right word. "They should have a compartment inside their heads, some compartment like the drawers of this cabinet, a spot where they can put various things, but it's as if there were no such place. Do you understand?"

"...even whips could not make the slaves obey once they had been roused by the passion for freedom."

"...the fools here cared as little for the stars as the stars do for the fools."

2/2

"...I desperately wanted to engrave the entire volume on my memory so that when they did come, I would not think of them and what they would make me suffer, but would remember the colours of my past as if recalling the cherished words of a book I had memorized with pleasure."

1/2

"...I knew that at any moment the book would be snatched from my hand, yet I wanted to think not of that but of what was written on its pages. It was as if the thoughts, the sentences, the equations in the book contained the whole of my past life which I dreaded to lose; while I read random phrases under my breath, as though reciting a prayer..."