Roomful Quotes (page 70)
Just like that. Gone forever. They will not grow old together. They will never live on a beach by the sea, their hair turned white, dancing in a living room to Billie Holiday or Nat Cole. They will not enter a New York club at midnight and show the poor hip-hop fools how to dance. They will not chuckle together over the endless folly of the world, its vanities and stupid ambitions. They will not hug each other in any chilly New York dawn. Oh, Mary Lou. My baby. My love.
Pete Hamill
We have all lived through that shriveling moment when a parent walks into a room and repeats, with sardonic disbelief, a couplet picked up from the stereo or the TV. 'What does that mean, then?' my mother asked me during Top of the Pops. "Get it on / Bang a gong"? How long did it take him to think of that, do you reckon?' And the correct answer - 'Two seconds, and it doesn't matter' - is always beyond you, so you just tell her to shut up, while inside you're hating Marc Bolan for making you...
Nick Hornby
As a young man just beginning to publish some short fiction in the t&a magazines, I was fairly optimistic about my chances of getting published; I knew that I had some game, as the basketball players say these days, and I also felt that time was on my side; sooner or later the best-selling writers of the sixties and seventies would either die or go senile, making room for newcomers like me.
Stephen King
The only private language I know is self-exaggeration. I think I've grown a second self in this room. It's the self-important fool that keeps the writer going. I exaggerate the pain of writing, the pain of solitude, the failure, the rage, the confusion, the helplessness, the fear, the humiliation. The narrower the boundaries of my life, the more I exaggerate myself. If the pain is real, why do I inflate it? Maybe this is the only pleasure I'm allowed.
Don DeLillo
To give the devil its due, ours is the best Age men ever lived in; we are all more comfortable and virtuous than we ever were; we have many new accomplishments, advertisements in green pastures, telephones in bedrooms, more newspapers than we want to read, and extremely punctilious diagnosis of maladies. A doctor examined a young lady the other day, and among his notes were there: ‘Not afraid of small rooms, ghosts, or thunderstorms – not made drunk by hearing Wagner; brown hair, artistic...
John Galsworthy
When Grant opened the door, he thought she looked like some fairy princess-part ingenue, part seductress. Her eyes met his in the glass, and she smiled while following through with the last stroke of the brush."Take the wrong turn?"I took the right one." He closed the door behind him, then flicked the lock."Is that so?" Tapping the brush against her palm, Gennie arched a brow. "I thought you had the room down the hall."The MacGregors forgot to put something in there." He stood where he was...
Nora Roberts
But when you have order, you don't need Gods. When everything is well ordered and disciplined then nothing is unexpected. If you understand everything,' I said carefully, 'then there's no room left for magic. It's only when you're lost and frightened and in the dark that you call on the Gods, and they like us to call on them. It makes them feel powerful, and that's why they like us to live in chaos.
Bernard Cornwell
Then I'm a paunchy guy in a room, with a note pinned to his sleeve: "You were alone in the world," it says, "and did a kindness for someone in need. Good for you. Now post this module, and follow this map to the home of Mrs. Ken Schwartz. Care for her with some big money that will come in the mail. Find someone to love. Your heart has never been broken. You've never done anything unforgivable or hurt anyone beyond reparation. Everyone you've ever loved you've treated like gold.
George Saunders