Each one of us had been starved for love for so long that we wanted to believe that love, once found, was all-powerful. We wanted to believe that it could give word to my inchoate pain and rages; that it could enable Muriel to face the world and get ...
Indeed, and crucially so, the serial form took the control of the novel away from the reader and left him in an imagined space that could not be thought of in terms of the physical space still to be read. At the end of each instalment the reader woul...
Abby began to think that all the beauty and ugliness and turbulence one found scattered through nature, one could also find in people themselves, all collected there, all together in a single place. No matter what terror or loveliness the earth could...
That Muhammad could predict certain events does not prove that he was a prophet: he may have been able to guess successfully, but this does not mean that he had real knowledge of the future. And certainly the fact that he was able to recount events f...
The ground was so far below him, he could barely make it out through the grey mists that whirled around him, but he could feel how fast he was falling, and he knew what was waiting for him down there. Even in dreams, you could not fall forever. He wo...
Fruma Sarah: How could you allow it, How? How could you let your daughter take my place? Live in my house, carry my keys, and wear my clothes, pearls, how? Ghosts: [singing] How could you allow your daughter to take her place? Fruma Sarah: Pearls! Gh...
Centurion: You know the penalty laid down by Roman law for harboring a known criminal? Matthias: No. Centurion: Crucifixion! Matthias: Oh. Centurion: Nasty, eh? Matthias: Could be worse. Centurion: What you mean "Could be worse"? Matthias: Well, you ...
Brian: Well, why don't you go and tell him you want to be a leper again? Ex-Leper: Uh, I could do that sir, yeah. Yeah, I could do that I suppose. What I was thinking was I was going to ask him if he could make me a bit lame in one leg during the mid...
Herman Blume: [on Max's offering a small box] What's this? [Herman opens it and looks] Max Fischer: That's the Perfect Attendance Award and the Punctuality Award. I got those at Rushmore. I thought you could choose which one you like more, and you co...
Jerry Wexler: Ruth Brown's got a tour booked in Georgia. She needs a band. Ray Charles: I'll take it. I could write the charts for her, I could do backup, and I could also be an opening act. Ahmet Ertegun: Okay. But you're gonna be financially respon...
Stingo: [groping interrupted] What is going on! Leslie Lapidus: You don't understand. I can't go all the way. I've reached a plateau in my analysis. Before I reached this plateau of vocalization, I could never have said any of those words. Those Angl...
Cameron Winklevoss: [Arrogantly as they lead the other boats by a wide margin] Is there any way to make this a fair fight? Tyler Winklevoss: We could jump out and swim. Cameron Winklevoss: We'd have to jump out and drown. Tyler Winklevoss: Well, you ...
Who else, when we stepped to the line in Torino, was going to be so mentally tough? Who else would have proven to himself that he could do anything he set out to do? In a sport that was always one tick away from being entirely out of control, who els...
We were very poor. But between the covers of books I could go anywhere, I could be anybody, I could do anything. I began to read about people of great accomplishment. As I read those stories, I began to see a connecting thread. I began to see that th...
That Detroit ultimately concentrated on automobiles could be traced to one genius, Henry Ford.... But that the necessary human energy for this development existed in Detroit could be proven through its early history.... I told him what I knew of the ...
The idea of luxury, even the word "luxury," was important to Arabella. Luxury meant something that was by definition overpriced, but was so nice, so lovely, in itself that you did not mind, in fact was so lovely that the expensiveness became part of ...
In spring of youth it was my lot To haunt of the wide world a spot The which I could not love the less- So lovely was the loneliness Of a wild lake, with black rock bound, And the tall pines that towered around. But when the Night had thrown her pall...
This was not the perfect work that had existed in her mind. It was only the imperfect rendering that was the best her skill could manage. Yet Giulia was not dismayed. For she knew that she would try again – and again, and again, for as long as it t...
When I started to learn how to read, I discovered the same kind of power. I could create an environment that I didn't have, and I could order this environment in the way that I couldn't in my actual life. Then, when I learned to write, I learned that...
When I could hold my eyes open long enough, I did stare up at the rain pelting down on me. I’ve never looked at it like that, straight up into the sky, and while I flinched more than I could actually see, when I could see it was absolutely beautifu...
My love has made me selfish. I cannot exist without you – I am forgetful of everything but seeing you again – my Life seems to stop there – I see no further. You have absorb’d me. I have a sensation at the present moment as though I was disso...
