“It seemed to him that although they were really different, yet there was a common trait in all of them, which made them into one. What was it - this something, living yet vague, that strains one’s gaze and strains one’s mind in an effort to define it? One wanted to find a word for it, but there was no word for it upon his tongue. Then suddenly he understood: it was hunger.”
F.V. Gladkov, Cement
“Perhaps it’s true that things can change in a day. That a few dozen hours can affect the outcome of whole lifetimes. And that when they do, those few dozen hours, like the salvaged remains of a burned house—-the charred clock, the singed photograph, the scorched furniture—-must be resurrected from the ruins and examined. Preserved. Accounted for. Little events, ordinary things, smashed and reconstitutred. Imbued with new meaning. Suddenly they become the bleached bones of a story.”
Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things
“No, I still ought to record, to leave something. I am not an ordinary - I am the one among you who is alive - Not only are my eyes different, and my hearing, and my sense of taste - not only is my sense of smell like a deer’s, my sense of touch like a bat’s - but most important, I have the capacity to conjoin all of this in one point - No, the secret is not revealed yet - even this is but the flint - and I have not even begun to speak of the kindling, of the fire itself.”
Vladimir Nabokov, Invitation to a Beheading
“The past is always tense, the future perfect.”
Zadie Smith, White Teeth
“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egotism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.” In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that our desire will ruin us.”
Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death
“We wanted more. We knocked the butt ends of our forks against the table, tapped our spoons against our empty bowls; we were hungry. We wanted more volume, more riots. We turned up the knob on the TV until our ears ached with the shouts of angry men. We wanted more music on the radio; we wanted beats; we wanted rock. We wanted muscles on our skinny arms. We had bird bones, hollow and light, and we wanted more density, more weight. We were six snatching hands, six stomping feet; we were brothers, boys, three little kings locked in a feud for more.”
Justin Torres, We The Animals
“…perhaps because few things in life hurt as much as the awareness that one has betrayed the ideas of one’s youth.”
Jose Saramago, The Elephant’s Journey
“People need routines. It’s like a theme in music. But it also restricts your thoughts and actions and limits your freedom. It structures your priorities and in some cases distorts your logic. In the present situation, you don’t want to move from where you are now…because you’re searching for something there. And until you find that something you can’t leave. Or you don’t want to leave.”
Haruki Murakami, 1Q84
Charleston, SC
