Quote From a Book

"...the standard fast-food and gas station carnival that [appears] to Americans as familiarity and homecoming, as if interstate sprawl [is] the natural state, and what ones [thinks] of as nature [is] nothing more than a curiosity, a relic of a time before civilization advanced to the state of a Whopper Value Meal."

~~from The Deluge by Stephen Markley

(As the above-quoted interstate sprawl has only spread as the years have gone by, one can begin to see why "kids these days" don't want to get away from their screens; there's nothing remotely resembling the natural world anywhere nearby them to escape to. Why the h*ll wouldn't they use their screens? It's the only escape they've got.)
 

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"I wish there was one person in my life I could show. One instinctive, absolutely unbrisk person I could take to Greece, and stand in front of certain shrines and sacred streams and say 'Look! Life is only comprehensible through a thousand local Gods. And not just the old dead ones with names like Zeus - no, but living Geniuses of Place and Person! And not just Greece but modern England! Spirits of certain trees, certain curves of a brick wall, certain chip shops, if you like, and slate roofs - just as of certain frowns in people and slouches' ... I'd say to them - 'Worship as many as you can see - and more will appear!'

"Equus" by Peter Shaffer
 

...[T]he arrogance the living carry. We ensconce ourselves in an epistemological certainty born from the mere fact that we've known history marginally longer than the dead. We elbow each other knowingly at their failures and ignorance. We almost never ask what it is that we don't yet know.

~~from The Deluge by Stephen Markley
 
"The Great Ouse. Ouse. Say it. Ouse. Slowly. How else can you say it? A sound which exudes slowness. A sound which suggests the slow, sluggish, forever oozing thing it is. A sound which invokes quiet flux, minimum tempo; cool, impassive, unmoved motion. A sound which will calm even the hot blood racing in your veins. Ouse, Ouse, Oooooouse..."

"Waterland" by Graham Swift
 
"We often forget that Christianity began as a revolutionary movement of the powerless facing down the cold fury of the Roman Empire. It was a movement of the poor and dispossessed finally rising up. Christians waged a spiritual war for centuries with God's love as their only weapon. It was a faith built to defy an empire, and it was persecuted with barbarity. People were crucified and burned alive for holding fast to the love and mercy of Christ's gospel. So is this not a miracle we're seeing? People demanding their safety and dignity and value on a global scale? Is this not how God works? Forget about mysterious ways--His hand moves through us with galvanic purpose that only the truly blind cannot see."
~~from The Deluge by Stephen Markley
 
"An apocalypse doesn’t happen because of evil men, zombies or even a virus. It happens because of ordinary people. Because somewhere along the way we lost society, lost cohesion. We forgot to try to see the other side. Instead, we all bunkered down harder in our trenches, refusing to be moved, lobbing missiles at those who dared to challenge our myopic view."

~~from The Drift by C. J. Tudor
 
Vampires, got to love them?

Meanwhile, André had risen, ate, showered and given three venipunctures to Larsen for the ceremony. They left before Jacqueline rose at precisely 11:00. André was deathly quiet and a bit worried. Larsen reassured him that everything would work out well.

“But Larsen the problem is – that I have not yet given her the third bite…”

“Of course you have not; it is not your honeymoon yet old boy, wait until tonight…”

“Ah but Larsen it is precisely for that point that I wonder how her body will react to my blood, even though it will be in the wine?”

“Fine – fine, pay attention and let us tick off the fingers of what you have done so far good?”

“Yes, go ahead.”

“No, you tell me old boy…”
 
How many lives does it take for something to count as important history? I would argue it takes only one. Even a single life is worthy of being written about, remembered.

~~from “A Letter from Victor LaValle about Lone Women,” goodreads.com, 3/29/2023
 
“I can live alone, if self-respect, and circumstances require me so to do. I need not sell my soul to buy bliss. I have an inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive if all extraneous delights should be withheld, or offered only at a price I cannot afford to give.”

By Charlotte Brontë - Jane Eyre.
 
What was George Patton's famous quote?



Image result for george patton book quotes


Lead Me, Follow Me or Get Out of My Way. “ Perhaps one of the most famous quotes that people don't realize originated with Patton, this mantra summed up his style.
 
The opening words of a Tale of Two Cities by Dickens

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity,
it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way–in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. ~ A Tale of Two Cities

Also a quote from the end of the book

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.” Sydney Carton, as he nobly takes the place of another man at the guillotine.
I still have both memorized from high school. ♥ Love them.
 
A sheriff arrested me. I could be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure my men-in-uniform fetish began that day. The sheriff was hot. And he handcuffed me. I've never been the same.
― Darynda Jones, First Grave on the Right


Forgive me for that one. It makes me LOL every time I read it.
 
“I can live alone, if self-respect, and circumstances require me so to do. I need not sell my soul to buy bliss. I have an inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive if all extraneous delights should be withheld, or offered only at a price I cannot afford to give.”

By Charlotte Brontë - Jane Eyre.
I love that. Jane Eyre is my favorite literary character. She could have "married" Rochester, been with the man she loved and a wealthy woman of high rank, but she had to be true to her own morals and she wasn't going to pretend the woman in the attic didn't exist. So she walked out into the night, penniless with no friends and no home. Later she could have married the kind young minister and had interesting worthwhile work to do, but she refused to compromise and marry a man she didn't love. Again, she walked away, on her own, but always with her self-respect.
 
Don’t walk in front of me
I may not follow
Don’t walk behind me
I may not lead
Walk beside me, and
just be my friend

~~Anonymous (erroneously attributed to Camus over the years; QuoteInvestigator.com says no proof that Camus really said this; still a great quote IMO since friendship is one of the best things humans can experience, even better [for you anyway] than power)
 
"The harsh reality is that we live in a universe that does not care for us, that shows no interest in our welfare, and that will not miss any opportunity to do away with us. How else to explain black holes, asteroids, plagues, tidal waves, tornadoes, hurricanes, and tigers? But that fact produces a positive effect: any intelligent species will understand this, and consequently they will assist each other whenever possible. And for those who doubt that this is so, recall that this is the definition of intelligence."
~~from Village in the Sky by Jack McDevitt
 
"If we can track down a happiness gene and thereby guarantee a pleasant, untroubled existence to our children? Would we want that?...People who can be happy in the face of serious setbacks would probably make pretty good slaves."
~~the Foreword by Jack McDevitt to Cryptic: The Best Short Fiction of Jack McDevitt
 


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