Been Quotes (page 51)
Oh, if only I did nothing simply as a result of laziness. Lord, how I’d respect myself then. I’d respect myself precisely because at least I’d be capable of being lazy; at least I’d possess one more or less positive trait of which I could be certain. Question: who am I? Answer: a sluggard. Why, it would have been very pleasant to hear that said about oneself. It would mean that I’d been positively identified; it would mean that there was something to be said about me. “A sluggard!” Why,...
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Writing this, he had reached the pit of despair and he thought that reading it, she would at least begin to sense his tragedy and her part in it. It was not that she had ever forced her way on him. That had never been necessary. Her way had simply been the air he breathed and when at last he had found other air, he couldn't survive in it. He felt that even if she didn't understand at once, the letter would leave her with an enduring chill and perhaps in time lead her to see herself as she was.
Flannery O'Connor
The dog, who had sounded so ferocious in the winter distances, was a female German Shepherd. She was shivering. Her tail was between her legs. She had been borrowed that morning from a farmer. She had never been to war before. She had no idea what game was being played. Her name was Princess.
Kurt Vonnegut
Once in a while, Jimmy would make up a word but he never once got caught out. ... He should have been pleased by his success with these verbal fabrications, but instead he was depressed by it. The memos telling him he'd done a good job meant nothing to him; all they proved was that no one was capable of appreciating how clever he had been. He came to understand why serial killers sent helpful clues to the police.
Margaret Atwood
He picked up the letter Q and hurled it into a distant privet bush where it hit a young rabbit. The rabbit hurtled off in terror and didn’t stop till it was set upon and eaten by a fox which choked on one of its bones and died on the bank of a stream which subsequently washed it away.
During the following weeks Ford Perfect swallowed his pride and struck up a relationship with a girl who had been a personnel officer on Golgafrincham, and he was terribly upset when she suddenly passed away...
Douglas Adams
I have to give her what you did, don't I?" she said. "Enough of my personal information for Aurilelde to link to her own... so that the congruency between us is complete, and all this works out the way it should..."Kit didn't say anything.... But why wouldn't I? Nita thought. To make all this come out all right. She nodded to Irina. Irina nodded back, turned away. And only then did it occur to Nita, with a shock, that this would mean it hadn't been Aurilelde who Kit had been so attracted to....
Diane Duane
It's queer how out of touch with truth women are. They live in a world of their own, and there had never been anything like it, and never can be. It is too beautiful altogether, and if they were to set it up it would go to pieces before the first sunset. Some confounded fact we men have been living contentedly with ever since the day of creation would start up and knock the whole thing over.
Joseph Conrad
I even read aloud the part of the novel I had rewritten, which is about as low as a writer can get and much more dangerous for him than glacier skiing unroped before the full winter snowfall has set over the crevices.
When they said, 'It's great, Ernest. Truly, it's great. You cannot know the thing it has," I wagged my tail in pleasure and plunged into the fiesta concept of life to see if I could not bring some attractive stick back, instead of thinking, 'If these bastards like it what is...
Ernest Hemingway
A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment from which to look back or from which to look ahead. I say 'one chooses' with the inaccurate pride of a professional writer who? when he has been seriously noted at all? has been praised for his technical ability, but do I in fact of my own will choose that black wet January night on the Common, in 1946, the sight of Henry Miles slanting across the wide river of rain, or did these images choose me?
Graham Greene
You ask me what it means to be irrelevant? The feeling is akin to visiting your old house as a wandering ghost with unfinished business. Imagine going back: the structure is familiar , but the door is now metal instead of wood, the walls have been painted a garish pink , the easy chair you loved so much is gone . Your office is now the family room and your beloved bookcases have been replaced by a brand-new television set . This is your house, and it is not. And you are no longer relevant to...
Azar Nafisi