Out Quotes (page 192)
…[T]he whole thing is really a dazzling illusion empty of all perception, an astonishing farce of misperception. And yet what are we to do about this terribly significant business of other people, which gets bled of the significance we think it has and takes on instead a significance that is ludicrous, so ill-equipped are we all to envision one another’s interior workings and invisible aims? Is everyone to go off and lock the door and sit secluded like the lonely writers do, in a soundproof...
Philip Roth
but nothing i ever gave was good for you; it was like white bread to goldfish. they cram and cram, and it kills them, and they drift in the pool, belly-up, making stunned facesand playing on our guiltas if their own toxic gluttonywas not their own faultthere you are, still outside the window, still with your hands out, stillpallid and fish-eyed, still actingstupidly innocent and starved.
Margaret Atwood
The psychiatrist wants to know why I go out and hike around in the forests and watch the birds and collect butterflies. I'll show you my collection some day."Good."They want to know what I do with my time. I tell them that sometimes I just sit and think. But I won't tell them what. I've got them running. And sometimes, I tell them, I like to put my head back, like this, and let the rain fall in my mouth. It tastes just like wine. Have you ever tried it?
Ray Bradbury
Yet what happened in fact? In the middle of the night John woke up and saw me sleeping beside him with no doubt a look of peace on my face, even of bliss, bliss is not unattainable in this world. He saw me—saw me as I was at that moment—took fright, hurriedly strapped the armour back over his heart, this time with chains and a double padlock, and stole out into the darkness.
J. M. Coetzee