I am back in my beloved city. The scene of desolation fills my eyes with tears. At every step my distress and agitation increases. I cannot recognize houses or landmarks I once knew well. Of the former inhabitants, there is no trace. Everywhere there...
A boy, if he's lucky, discovers his limitations across a leisurely passage of years, with a self-awareness arriving slowly. That way, at least he has plenty of time to heroically imagine himself first. Most boys unfold in this natural, measured way, ...
It was early evening twilight when we came around a corner… and there in the road was a red deer stag. He leapt up the bank beside the road and then paused, looking back over his shoulder as we passed. Like a scene in a dream I watched him as he wa...
I make up as little as possible. I spend a great deal of time on research, on finding all the available accounts of a scene or incident, finding out all the background details and the biographies of the people involved there, and I try to run up all ...
Parent-Teacher Conference At the parent-teacher conference, my father made a scene. He scared my fifth-grade teacher, with his mask from Halloween. She showed him all my science grades and said she was concerned, but he just stuck his tongue out when...
Last Saturday night I was in a club on the South Side of Chicago listening to live rock music and talking to a guitar playing veteran of the music scene in the city. He looked and talked like the musicians that I recall from my childhood; he was a th...
Benjy Benjamin: [in a hospital in bandages and casts] It's all your fault. It's all your fault right from the beginning to the end. J. Algernon Hawthorne: You know, even for a policeman, your behavior was ruddy outrageous. Sylvester Marcus: Yeah, you...
Korben Dallas: [Leans down and kisses Leeloo. Leeloo swipes his gun and holds it to his head] Korben Dallas: You're right, you're right, I shouldn't have done that. I'm sorry. Leeloo: Senno ecto gammat! Korben Dallas: I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Leeloo: ec...
[Deleted scene; Harry finds Aunt Petunia standing alone in the empty living room] Petunia Dursley: I have lived in this house for twenty years, and now in a single night, I'm expected to leave. Harry Potter: They'll torture you. If they think for a m...
[Pauline and Juliet are planning to run away to Hollywood and meet their favorite actors, such as James Mason and Mario Lanza] Juliet Hulme: As soon as those bods in Hollywood cop a look at us, they'll be falling over themselves! Pauline Parker: Oh, ...
Rob: [From a deleted scene] Barry, you're over 30 years old. You owe it to yourself, to your friends, to your parents, NOT to play in a band called Sonic Death Monkey! Barry: I owe it to myself to go RIGHT to the edge, Rob! And this band does exactly...
Scuttle: [Flying blissfully close to the wedding barge, as he hums the Wedding March] Vanessa: [singing in Ariel's Voice, to the tune of "Poor Unfortunate Souls"] What a lovely little bride I'll make/ My dear I'll look divine. Vanessa: [Chuckles, the...
Swan: [Deleted introductory scene in the subway] ... What's bugging you? You got a problem? Ajax: Yeah, I got a problem. I don't like what we're getting into. This whole thing stinks. Swan: We're going in there just like all the other guys. Ajax: Jus...
Waitress: [deleted scene: Cap, feeling disconnected from the world, sits at an outdoor cafe table sketching Stark Tower] Waiting on the big guy? Steve Rogers: Ma'am? Waitress: Iron Man. A lot of people eat here just to see him fly by. Steve Rogers: R...
Paul Varjak: [second scene in the library] You're crazy. Holly Golightly: What? Do you think you own me? Paul Varjak: That's exactly what I think. Holly Golightly: I know. It's what everybody always thinks but everybody happens to be wrong. Paul Varj...
Like Goethe's offers a wide panorama of scenes from the vulgar to the sublime, with passages of wondrous poetry that can be sensed even through the veil of translation. And it also preserves the iridescence of its modern theme. From it Oswald Spengle...
O Solitude! if I must with thee dwell, Let it not be among the jumbled heap Of murky buildings; climb with me the steep,— Nature’s observatory—whence the dell, Its flowery slopes, its river’s crystal swell, May seem a span; let me thy vigils ...
Lift not the painted veil which those who live Call Life: though unreal shapes be pictured there, And it but mimic all we would believe With colours idly spread,--behind, lurk Fear And Hope, twin Destinies; who ever weave Their shadows, o'er the chas...
Interrupting what promised to be a long spate of fatherly advice, St. Vincent said in a clipped voice, “It’s not a love match. It’s a marriage of convenience, and there’s not enough warmth between us to light a birthday candle. Get on with it...
The novel was born with the Modern Era, which made man, to quote Heidegger, the "only real subject," the ground for everything. It is largely through the novel that man as an individual was established on the European scene. Away from the novel, in o...
Like the Nazis, the cadres of jihad have a death wish that sets the seal on their nihilism. The goal of a world run by an oligarchy in possession of Teutonic genes, who may kill or enslave other 'races' according to need, is not more unrealizable tha...
