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Quotes by Novelist
"There are different kinds of infidelity, but betrayal is betrayal wherever you find it."
38
"I am in the Aleph, the point at which everything is in the same place at the same time. I'm at a window, looking out at the world and its secret places, poetry lost in time and words left hanging in space...sentences that are perfectly understood, even when left unspoken. Feelings that simultaneously exalt and suffocate."
38
"It's true, life really is generous to those who pursue their Personal Legend."
38
"The sort of poetry I seek resides in objects man can't touch."
38
"But what use is the unicorn to you if your intellect doesn't believe in it?"
38
"Who has believed in the world and died with its name on his lips?"
38
"You again, she said, and she did not sound happy."I know, the warrior replied with a heartfelt sigh. "You're so lucky to see me twice in one day. You're honored by my presence, yada, yada, heard it all before. Let's just move on, shall we. I don't handle fawning very well."
38
"And what does a person with such romantic temperament seek in the study of the classics?"If by romantic you mean solitary and introspective, I think romantics are frequently the best classicists."
38
"It's where we go and what we do when we get there that tells us who we are."
38
"It's impossible, he snapped. "Why? "Because I'm Sebastian, Lord St. Vincent. I can't be celibate. Everyone knows that."
38
"If I were going to convert to any religion I would probably choose Catholicism because it at least has female saints and the Virgin Mary."
38
"He never even thought of tenderness and emotion; his considerations about Durham remained cold. Durham didn't dislike him, he was sure. That was all he wanted. One thing at a time. He didn't so much as have hopes, for hope distracts, and he had a great deal to see to."
38
"Oxford is Oxford: not a mere receptacle for youth, like Cambridge. Perhaps it wants its inmates to love it rather than to love one another."
38
"I wasn't particularly worried; running is overrated anyway, and sport only makes you sweaty and smug and wears out the knees."
37
"When we lived in Juneau, Alaska, it was a town of about 7,000 people, and totally isolated; the only way to get to it was by ship."
37
"It is not my mode of thought that has caused my misfortunes, but the mode of thought of others."
37
"A drunken but exceedingly depressed German clown from Munich entertained the public."
37
"I used to think I had ambition... but now I'm not so sure. It may have been only discontent. They're easily confused."
37
"The prudent person may direct a state, but it is the enthusiast who regenerates or ruins it."
37
"I'm less worried about accomplishment - as younger people always can't help but be - and more concerned with spending my time well, spending time with my family, and reading, learning things."
37
"My name is Cammie! I didn't think about all the people I could have woken, all the alarms that might have gone off. I just snapped, 'How did you know about Boston? Why are you working with Mr. Solomon now? Are you my friend or are you my enemy, Zach? Or, wait, let me guess, you can't tell me."
37
"The "music of decline had sounded, as in that wonderful Chinese fable; like a thrumming bass on the organ its reverberations faded slowly out over decades; its throbbing could be heard in the corruption of the schools, periodicals, and universities, in melancholia and insanity among those artists and critics who could still be taken seriously; it raged as untrammeled and amateurish overproduction in all the arts."
37
"People live longer today than they ever have. They live happier lives, have more knowledge, more information. All this is the result of communications technology. How is any of that bad?"
37
"I suppose that writers should, in a way, feel flattered by the censorship laws. They show a primitive fear and dread at the fearful magic of print."
37
"I wanted to capture the excitement of house music, almost like a four-four beat, and the best way to do that was to use a language that was rhythmic and performative."
37
"They are Man's and they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance and this girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased."
37
"I knew from the start we were nothing like "forever". Maybe because forever is such a scary place."
37
"Too much good fortune can make you smug and unaware. Happiness should be like an oasis, the greener for the desert that surrounds it."
37
"Hungry Joe collected lists of fatal diseases and arranged them in alphabetical order so that he could put his finger without delay on any one he wanted to worry about."
37
"In Canada, nobody is ever overthrown because nobody gives a damn."
37
"Man is a creature of hope and invention, both of which belie the idea that things cannot be changed."
37
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