You once said that you would like to sit beside me while I write. Listen, in that case I could not write at all. For writing means revealing oneself to excess; that utmost of self-revelation and surrender, in which a human being, when involved with o...
We are fast moving into something, we are fast flung into something like asteroids cast into space by the death of a planet, we the people of earth are cast into space like burning asteroids and if we wish not to disintegrate into nothingness we must...
He dropped his voice, so low that Tessa wasn’t sure if what he said next was real or part of the dream darkness rising to claim her, though she fought against it. “I’ve never minded it,” he went on. “Being lost, that is. I had always though...
I’m an observer. I am fascinated by people and how their minds work (and, of course, my own). Why we are the way we are, why we do the things we do – and that interest drives my writing. I was a physicist before fiction claimed my soul, so I’m ...
O guide my judgment and my taste, Sweet Spirit, author of the book Of wonders, told in language chaste And plainness, not to be mistook. O let me muse, and yet at sight The page admire, the page believe; "Let there be light, and there was light, Let ...
The thing people don't understand about an army is its great, unpunctuated wastes of inaction: you have to scavenge for food, you are camped out somewhere with a rising water level because your mad capitaine says so, you are shifted abruptly in the m...
[Hitler] has grasped the falsity of the hedonistic attitude to life. Nearly all western thought since the last war, certainly all “progressive” thought, has assumed tacitly that human beings desire nothing beyond ease, security, and avoidance of ...
Death is nothing at all, I have only slipped into the next room I am I and you are you Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by my old familiar name, Speak to me in the easy way which you always used Put no difference in your ton...
This time Elizabeth Ann didn't answer, because she herself didn't know what the matter was. But I do, and I'll tell you. The matter was that never before had she known what she was doing in school. She had always thought she was there to pass from on...
Sandy Carver: [Sandy needs help with homework] Hey Mikey? Mikey Carver: Yeah. Sandy Carver: Geometry? Mikey Carver: Sure, anything but this English. Sandy Carver: How come your so good at Math, but not at English? Mikey Carver: I'm not good at Math, ...
Henry Barthes: How are you to imagine anything if the images are always provided for you? Henry Barthes: Doublethink. To deliberately believe in lies, while knowing they're false. Henry Barthes: Examples of this in everyday life: "Oh, I need to be pr...
Clementine: [after discussing the names for all the different hair colors there must be] I apply my personality into paste. Joel: Oh, I doubt that very much. Clementine: Well, you don't know me so... you don't know, do you? Joel: Sorry, I was... just...
[first lines] Raoul Duke: [narrating] We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like: Raoul Duke: I feel a bit lightheaded. Maybe you should drive. Raoul Duke: [narrati...
[gathering wood to shore up the tunnels, Hilts removes the wooden slats from bunk beds in the sleeping area of the prisoner barracks, holding a stack of them, and walks carefully out into the hallway] Cavendish: [passes Hilts in the hallway on his wa...
Ricky Roma: How are you? George Aaronow: Fine. You mean the board? You mean, you mean on the board? Ricky Roma: Yes, okay. The board. George Aaronow: I'm fucked on the board. I can't... I can't... I can't... my mind must be in other places cause I ca...
Mayor: [speaking cordially with Madeline] I always have time to put on a tux and eat free food for a good cause. Who are saving this week? Madeliene White: Well, I'm doing a round of support for the Joseph Freidkin Memorial Fund for spinal cord resea...
Peter Warne: You know, I had you pegged right from the jump. Just a spoiled brat of a rich father. The only way you get anything is to buy it, isn't it? You're in a jam and all you can think of is your money. It never fails, does it? Ever hear of the...
Mike Ramsey: This is ridiculous. Mike Eruzione: Don't worry about it, Rammer. It'll be all right. Right OC? Jack O'Callahan: Herb's not gonna do a damn thing boys. He's just messing with our minds. Jim Craig: Oh, you think so, Jack? Jack O'Callahan: ...
Morpheus: I can see it in your eyes. You have the look of a man who accepts what he sees because he's expecting to wake up. Ironically, this is not far from the truth. Do you believe in fate, Neo? Neo: No. Morpheus: Why not? Neo: 'Cause I don't like ...
[first lines] Ada: The voice you hear is not my speaking voice - -but my mind's voice. I have not spoken since I was six years old. No one knows why - -not even me. My father says it is a dark talent, and the day I take it into my head to stop breath...
Jim Stark: Now, would you like to rent or are you more in the mood to buy, dear? Judy: You decide, darling. Remember, our budget. Plato: Oh, don't give it a second thought, it's, uh, only 3 million dollars a month. Jim Stark: What? Judy: Oh, we can a...