Top This Could Be Us Quotes
Browse top 567 famous quotes and sayings about This Could Be Us by most favorite authors.
Favorite This Could Be Us Quotes
1. "He muttered to himself. Why bother. Why does this matter so much. What difference does it make to anything if I solve this blue and just start again. I could just sit down and drink wine. I could go and be useful in a cholera-camp in Columbia or Ethiopia. Why bother to render the transparency in solid paint or air on a bit of board? I could just stop. He could not."
Author: A.S. Byatt
2. "Mrs Loudon was even more successful than her husband thanks to a single work, Practical Instructions in Gardening for Ladies, published in 1841, which proved to be magnificently timely. It was the first book of any type ever to encourage women of elevated classes to get their hands dirty and even to take on a faint glow of perspiration. This was novel almost to the point of eroticism. Gardening for Ladies bravely insisted that women could manage gardening independent of male supervision if they simply observed a few sensible precautions – working steadily but not too vigorously, using only light tools, never standing on damp ground because of the unhealthful emanations that would rise up through their skirts."
Author: Bill Bryson
3. "Out of evil, much good has come to me. By keeping quiet, repressing nothing, remaining attentive, and by accepting reality - taking things as they are, and not as I wanted them to be - by doing all this, unusual knowledge has come to me, and unusual powers as well, such as I could never have imagined before. I always thought that when we accepted things they overpowered us in some way or other. This turns out not to be true at all, and it is only by accepting them that one can assume and attitude towards them. So now I intend to play the game of life, being receptive to whatever comes to me, good and bad, sun and shadow forever alternating, and, in this way, also accepting my own nature with its positive and negative sides. Thus everything becomes more alive to me. What a fool I was! How I tried to force everything to go according to way I thought it ought to. an ex patient of C. G. Jung (Alchemical Studies, pg 47)"
Author: C.G. Jung
4. "All Hell is smaller than one pebble of your earthly world: but it is smaller than one atom of this world, the Real World. Look at yon butterfly. If it swallowed all Hell, Hell would not be big enough to do it any harm or to have any taste''It seems big enough when you're in it, Sir.''And yet all loneliness, angers, hatreds, envies, and itchings that it contains, if rolled into one single experience and put into the scale against the least moment of the joy that is felt by the least in Heaven, would have no weight that could be registered at all. Bad cannot succeed even in being bad as truly as good is good. If all Hell's miseries together entered the consciousness of yon wee yellow bird on the bough there, they would be swallowed up without trace, as if one drop of ink had been dropped into that Great Ocean to which your terrestrial Pacific is only a molecule''I see,' said I at last. 'She couldn't fit into Hell."
Author: C.S. Lewis
5. "I am a man, and men are animals who tell stories. This is a gift from God, who spoke our species into being, but left the end of our story untold. That mystery is troubling to us. How could it be otherwise? Without the final part, we think, how are we to make sense of all that went before: which is to say, our lives?So we make stories of our own, in fevered and envious imitation of our Maker, hoping that we'll tell, by chance, what God left untold. And finishing our tale, come to understand why we were born."
Author: Clive Barker
6. "One day the pigs will breach this door and eat me alive. That's why I stay thin, so when they come, I'll help as few of the fat beasts as possible. If I wasn't eating the ones that I could, they would break through the door and rip me apart even sooner. You might think me cruel, boy, but I only eat them because if I didn't they would eat me…And then who would feed them? Few must be eaten so many can be fed. Kindness is cruel, and cruelty is kind. Pain is inevitable. Some think suffering is optional, but pain is suffering too. Before life pulls the trigger on the gun touching the back of our heads, time has already sent plenty of less fatal bullets through us."
Author: Craig Stone
7. "We could make this work, you know.""I will knee you in the groin.""I could give you a night you will never forget.""Because you will be writhing in agony all night and I will laugh unmercifully. It will be unforgettable."
Author: Darynda Jones
8. "When my sons told me about what they'd found, I went to the priests of Belar and had them examine the auguries. This is the year to go. The ice up there won't be as thick again for years and years. Then they cast my own auguries, and from what they say, this could be the most fortunate year in my whole life.""Do you actually believe that superstitious nonsense?" I demanded. "Are you so gullible that you think that somebody can foretell the future by fondling a pile of sheep guts?"He looked a little injured. "This was important, Belgarath. I certainly wouldn't trust sheep's entrails for something like this.""I'm glad to hear that.""We used a horse instead. Horse guts never lie."
Author: David Eddings
9. "Marconi said, "I see you have your instruments. Can any of you sing? The old spirituals work best."John said, "I can sing."I said, "No, you can't, John.""Well, I play the guitar.""So can I," said Big Jim. "We have two guitars."I said, "This could not be any stupider."John said, "Dave, you remember the words to 'Camel Holocaust'?""Ah, once again, you prove me wrong, John."
Author: David Wong
10. "That's the key, you know, confidence. I know for a fact that if you genuinely like your body, so can others. It doesn't really matter if it's short, tall, fat or thin, it just matters that you can find some things to like about it. Even if that means having a good laugh at the bits of it that wobble independently, occasionally, that's all right. It might take you a while to believe me on this one, lots of people don't because they seem to suffer from self-hatred that precludes them from imagining that a big woman could ever love herself because they don't. But I do. I know what I've got is a bit strange and difficult to love but those are the very aspects that I love the most! It's a bit like people. I've never been particularly attracted to the uniform of conventional beauty. I'm always a bit suspicious of people who feel compelled to conform. I personally like the adventure of difference. And what's beauty, anyway?"
Author: Dawn French
11. "Come on, sweetheart. I'm letting you do this. Do it." When she didn't respond, he added, "Listen, I know it's easier when they're not fucking looking at you."Beckett turned and faced the wall."I don't know who hired you, but can I ask you for something?" He talked at the wall.Here comes the fast-talking, the mojo, the shout to his employees."Could you make sure Cole doesn't take credit for his handiwork last night? And can you follow up on that Chris guy?" Beckett turned his head a bit, listening for her answer.He still trusts me. He still trusts me with his brothers. I can't do it."
Author: Debra Anastasia
12. "How may one describe enchantment? As he sang, his countenance softened, and without benefit of costume or any other artifice of the stage, the Gaspari I knew faded and was transfored into something eerily beautiful. A delicate hand, rising and turning like a vine, seemed to unfurl this otherworldy sound into the air. Though I could not translate the words, there was no need, for the sound went straight to my soul, transcending the poor and broken language we mortals must use. I slipped gratefully out of my body and floated on the current of music, feeling that all of us round the table were a single spirit, a single being. I was filled with such love. The voice soared, wave upon wave, until the last note, quivering with tenderness, put us ashore again too soon."
Author: Debra Dean
13. "How does she do it? She makes it sound like she is so cut up to be giving them this information, and it's all just bumph out of her head. She never told them ANYTHING. I don't think she's given them the right name of any airfield in Britain except Mainsend and Buscot, which of course were where she was stationed. They could have easily checked. It's all so close to truth, and so glib--her aircraft identification is rather good considering what a fuss she makes about it. It makes me think of the first day I met her, giving those directions in German. So cool and crisp, such authority--suddenly she really was a radio operator, a German radio operator, she was so good at faking it. Or when I told her to be Jamie, how she just suddenly turned into Jamie.This confession of hers is rotten with error..."
Author: Elizabeth Wein
14. "This was not because he was cowardly and abject, quite the contrary; but for some time past he had been in an overstrained irritable condition, verging on hypochondria. He had become so completely absorbed in himself, and isolated from his fellows that he dreaded meeting, not only his landlady, but anyone at all. He was crushed by poverty, but the anxieties of his position had of late ceased to weigh upon him. He had given up attending to matters of practical importance; he had lost all desire to do so. Nothing that any landlady could do had a real terror for him. But to be stopped on the stairs, to be forced to listen to her trivial, irrelevant gossip, to pestering demands for payment, threats and complaints, and to rack his brains for excuses, to prevaricate, to lie—no, rather than that, he would creep down the stairs like a cat and slip out unseen."
Author: Fyodor Dostoyevsky
15. "Dearest Alexia, Oh, please absolve me of this guilt I already feel squishing on my very soul! My troubled heart weeps! Oh dear, Ivy was getting flowery. My bones ache with the sin that I am about to commit. Oh, why must I have bones? I have lost myself to this transplanting love. You could not possibly understand how this feels! Yet try to comprehend, dearest Alexia, I am like a delicate bloom. Marriage without love is all very well for people like you, but I should wilt and wither. I need a man possessed of a poet's soul! I am simply not so stoic as you. I cannot stand to be apart from him one moment longer! The caboose of my love has derailed, and I must sacrifice all for the man I adore! Please do not judge me harshly! It was all for love! ~ Ivy."
Author: Gail Carriger
16. "Were this world an endless plain, and by sailing eastward we could for ever reach new distances, and discover sights more sweet and strange than any Cyclades or Islands of King Solomon, then there were promise in the voyage. But in pursuit of those far mysteries we dream of, or in tormented chase of the demon phantom that, some time or other, swims before all human hearts; while chasing such over this round globe, they either lead us on in barren mazes or midway leave us whelmed."
Author: Herman Melville
17. "Perhaps I was mad, as I thought at moments; perhaps I was not like other men? But I was able to do the same things the others did; with a little effort and industry I could read Plato, was able to solve problems in trigonometry or follow a chemical analysis. These was only one thing I could not do: wrest the dark secret goal from myself and keep it before me as others did who knew exactly what they wanted to be- professors, lawyers, doctors, artists, however long this would take them and whatever difficulties and advantages this decision would bear in its wake. This I could not do. Perhaps I would become something similar but how was I to know? Perhaps I would have to continue my search for years on end and would not become anything, and would not reach a goal. Perhaps I would reach this goal but it would turn out to be an evil, dangerous, horrible one?"
Author: Hermann Hesse
18. "Shut up," I snapped. "This is not the time. What part of this situation seems like a joke to you?"Lohka pulled up his knees, giving a feeble, half-manic little laugh. "Oh, maybe just the idea that some soul-devouring being of chaos could be waiting anywhere to finish destroying my life," he said. "That's kind of hilarious, you know. Have you ever had a soul-devouring being of chaos hunting you down so it could finish eating you?""No," I said. "I'm sorry, Lohka.""That's nice," he muttered."What about the part where this soul-devouring being of chaos seems to have a taste for me at the moment?" Zhabyr asked. "Can we worry about that, now? Because I kind of already am."
Author: J. Leigh Bralick
19. "I love this book like I love a brick and a blanket, which could be used to teach people the value of safe sex. Remember, if you're going to have safe sex, try not to get locked inside the safe without anybody on the outside knowing the combination."
Author: Jarod Kintz
20. "...This was probably my biggest mistake: to think that the truth could be captured externally and simply with one's eyes, to imagine a truth exists which can be grasped at once and thereafter remain still and at peace, just like a statue, a truth which contracts and expands depending on the temperature, a truth which eventually erodes, not only modifying the surrounding space but subtly altering thhe composition of the ground on which it stands, shedding minute particles of marble, just as we shed hairs, nail clippings, saliva and the words we speak."
Author: José Saramago
21. "My people have a country of their own to go to if they choose... Africa... but, this America belongs to them just as much as it does to any of the white race... in some ways even more so, because they gave the sweat of their brow and their blood in slavery so that many parts of America could become prosperous and recognized in the world."
Author: Josephine Baker
22. "I will admit that I wanted to shout for standing on the top of a scaffold in front of a good new wall always goes to my head. It is a sensation something between that of an angel let out of his cage into a new sky and a drunkard turned loose in a royal cellar.And after all, what nobler elevation could you find in this world than the scaffold of a wall painter? No admiral on the bridge of a new battleship designed by the old navy, could feel more pleased with himself than Gulley, on two planks, forty feet above dirt level, with his palette table beside him, his brush in his hand, and the draught blowing up his trousers; cleared for action."
Author: Joyce Cary
23. "Can I...Can I...""You can do anything." She shivers as his hands move over her body, but this time it is wholly unmixed with fear and she cannot believe how wonderful it feels.---I've...had something in my wallet ever since I knew...Well, ever since I hoped that there would be a time when I would need to...protect you like this.""And when was that?""If I answer that, then will you stop talking?""Yes." "I will because your answers are so perfect.""I saw you try and take care of someone that you thought was weaker than yourself, I couldn't believe that someone who had been through what you;d been through could be that...well, generous, and thoughtful..."
Author: Julia Hoban
24. "Ash laid his cheek against the back of my head and sighed. It wasn't a sigh of irritation or anger or the melancholy that seemed to plague him at times. He sounded...content. Peaceful, even. It made me a little sad, knowing we couldn't have more, that this could be our last night together, without war and politics and faery laws coming between us.Ash brushed the hair from my neck and leaned close to my ear, his voice so soft that not even Grimalkin could've heard it. "I love you," he murmured, and my heart nearly burst out of my chest. "Whatever happens, we're together now. Always."
Author: Julie Kagawa
25. "Henry drew a shaky breath. "Do me a favor, Meg.""Anything," I whispered."Don't fall for Quinn O'Neill. If you're going to do this thing with him…go to this dance, don't fall for him.""Never," I said. "I promise.""Because I'm all filled up on sad right now." He sniffed again and I could tell he was more in control. "And you can't ask me to sit by and watch you get all caught up in this guy. I can't handle that—thinking he swept you off your feet because he bathed in body spray and dressed up." His voice sounded rough. "I know you think I'm being funny right now, but I'm completely serious. Don't make me watch that happen.""You know my heart," I said. "It's yours."
Author: Laura Anderson Kurk
26. "Hosiah Lister, now dead, rec'd his freedom."Consider, then, the full measure of my sadness, reading this inscription; not merely for Hosiah Lister, but for all of us, consider the dear cost of liberty in a world so hostile, so teeming with enemies and opportunists, that one could not become free without casting aside all casualty, all choice, all will, all identity; finding freedom only in the spacious blankness of unbeing, the wide plains of nonentity, infinite and still."
Author: M.T. Anderson
27. "It was simply that I knew, or had known, precisely why he did not love all his children equally. Differentiation, variation, appreciation of the unique: this was part of what he was. His children were not the same, so his feelings toward each were not the same. He loved us all, but differently. And because he did this, because he did not pretend that love was fair or equal, mortals could mate for an afternoon or for the rest of their lives. Mothers could tell their twins or triplets apart. Children could have crushes and outgrow them; elders could remain devoted to their spouses long after beauty had gone. The mortal heart was fickle. Naha made it so. And because of this, they were free to love as they wished, and not solely by the dictates of instinct or power or tradition."
Author: N.K. Jemisin
28. "How could you keep this from me? How could you let me fall for you?" I shouted, as I uncontrollably shoved him, repeatedly. "I meant nothing to you, did I?" "Look at me!" he yelled, gesturing his arms as the rain cascaded off of him. "I'm standing here. What more do I have to do to prove what you mean to me?" he proclaimed, as he engulfed the space between us, steeling my breath. Intense passion radiated from him as he spoke."
Author: Nicole Gulla
29. "I really need to remember to block my thoughts.""Oh, come on," he pulled me closer towards him. "Why are you so scared?""Because the second that I let this conversation happen, I'll be letting my walls down. No matter what answer you give me, you'll have some sort of power over me, and I don't want that." I pushed past him, plopping down on the bed, not bothering to remove my boots.I could feel the mattress sink beside me. Ian ran his fingers through my hair. "Come here," he spoke softly. "Please." I pushed myself into a sitting position, and moved closer to him, leaning my head on Ian's shoulder. "I like this, a lot. It feels nice." Ian lifted my chin so that I was forced to look directly at him, and then he leaned in to kiss me."
Author: Nicole Sobon
30. "Live the life you'd be envious of if you saw someone else living it. This is my personal mantra. Whenever I'm going through a difficult time, like a breakup, and I'm wishing to be the person who could get over it and move on, I tell myself to be that person. Instead of waiting to be inspired by someone else and being jealous that they're living a life I wish I had, I tell myself not to wait for that moment and to start being the person I want to be. If you wish you were the woman who went for that big promotion, learned a second language, dumped that guy who cheated on you, then just be that person. Think, if I have the energy to wish for it, I have the energy to do it."
Author: Olivia Munn
31. "I would carry some of it if I could, Bean said silently. Like I did today, you can turn it over to me and I'll do it, if I can. You don't have to do this alone.Only even as he thought this, Bean knew it wasn't true. If it could be done, Ender was the one who would have to do it. All those months when Bean refused to see Ender, hid from him, it was because he couldn't bear to face the fact that Ender was what Bean only wished to be — the kind of person on whom you could put all your hopes, who could carry all your fears, and he would not let you down, would not betray you.I want to be the kind of boy you are, thought Bean. But I don't want to go through what you've been through to get there."
Author: Orson Scott Card
32. "Last-Minute Message For a Time CapsuleI have to tell you this, whoever you are:that on one summer morning here, the oceanpounded in on tumbledown breakers,a south wind, bustling along the shore,whipped the froth into little rainbows,and a reckless gull swept down the beachas if to fly were everything it needed.I thought of your hovering saucers,looking for clues, and I wanted to write this down,so it wouldn't be lost forever - -that once upon a time we hadmeadows here, and astonishing things,swans and frogs and luna mothsand blue skies that could stagger your heart.We could have had them still,and welcomed you to earth, butwe also had the righteous oneswho worshipped the True Faith, and Holy War.When you go home to your shining galaxy,say that what you learnedfrom this dead and barren place isto beware the righteous ones."
Author: Philip Appleman
33. "If God wants something from me, he would tell me. He wouldn't leave someone else to do this, as if an infinite being were short on time. And he would certainly not leave fallible, sinful humans to deliver an endless plethora of confused and contradictory messages. God would deliver the message himself, directly, to each and every one of us, and with such clarity as the most brilliant being in the universe could accomplish. We would all hear him out and shout "Eureka!" So obvious and well-demonstrated would his message be. It would be spoken to each of us in exactly those terms we would understand. And we would all agree on what that message was."
Author: Richard Carrier
34. "Maybe man is nothing in particular,' Cross said gropingly. 'Maybe that's the terror of it. Man may be just anything at all. And maybe man deep down suspects this, really knows this, kind of dreams that it is true; but at the same time he does not want really to know it? May not human life on this earth be a kind of frozen fear of man at what he could possibly be? And every move he makes might not these moves be just to hide this awful fact? To twist it into something which he feels would make him rest and breathe a little easier? What man is is perhaps too much to be borne by man..."
Author: Richard Wright
35. "Facinating." He broke into a wide grin. "I've discovered something, Khufu. This is not Memphis, Egypt."Khufu gave me a sideways look, and I could swear his expression meant, Duh."I've also discovered a new form of magic called blues music," the man continued. "And barbecue. Yes, you must try barbecue."
Author: Rick Riordan
36. "The application of this knife, the division of the world into parts and the building of this structure, is something everybody does. All the time we are aware of millions of things around us - these changing shapes, these burning hills, the sound of the engine, the feel of the throttle, each rock and weed and fence post and piece of debris beside the road - aware of these things but not really conscious of them unless there is something unusual or unless they reflect something we are predisposed to see. We could not possibly be conscious of these things and remember all of them because our mind would be so full of useless details we would be unable to think. From all this awareness we must select, and what we select and calls consciousness is never the same as the awareness because the process of selection mutates it. We take a handful of sand from the endless landscape of awareness around us and call that handful of sand the world." -Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"
Author: Robert M. Pirsig
37. "This story is very simple, although it could have been very complicated. Also, it's incomplete, because stories like this don't have an ending."
Author: Roberto Bolaño
38. "Vasco bought a bottle of vodka to celebrate and they drank it in the old sailors' graveyard in Mangrove South. This was where the funeral business had first put down its roots. Over the wall, between two warehouses, Jed could just make out the Witch's Fingers, four long talons of sand that lay in the mouth of the river. Rumour had it that, on stormy nights a century ago, they used to reach out, gouge holes in passing ships, and drag them down. Hundreds of wrecks lay buried in that glistening silt. The city's black heart had beaten strongly even then. There was one funeral director, supposedly, who used to put lamps out on the Fingers and lure ships to their doom."
Author: Rupert Thomson
39. "Morning. I didn't wake you, did I?' God, he looks gorgeous, even at this early hour. 'No. I've been awake a while. Couldn't sleep.' 'Me eighter. I've has this girl on my mind all night' 'Anyone I know?' 'You might know her. Blond hair, blue eyes ... beautiful. We went out on a date last night as it happens.' ' Really? So how was the date?' 'Well, that's the thing... The date was amazing, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about her... or her gorgeous mouth ever since...And the thing is, I really need to kiss her again.' ' I think she needs you to kiss her too.' 'You do?' 'Mmm"
Author: Samantha Towle
40. "This was the feeling that Ms. Hempel couldn't shake: a conviction that she spent her days among people at the age when they are most purely themselves. How could she not be depleted when she came home, having been exposed for hours, without protection, to all those thrumming radiant selves? Here they were, just old enough to have discovered their souls, but not yet dulled by the ordinary act of survival, not yet practiced in dissembling."
Author: Sarah Shun Lien Bynum
41. "Simone couldn't move as she caught the hot look in his eyes. This was it and she knew it. She was lost to him. How could she deny him after all he'd done to protect her?"Simone!"She jumped at Jesse's shrill call.He popped into the room, then screamed like a girl. "I'm sorry. You two continue."Xypher let out a low, evil growl as he hung his head down and shook it over her. "I don't know about you, but that just killed my mood. The only thing to do more damage would would be to see Jesse naked. That would probably make me impotent for eternity. I think we just found the perfect birth control."
Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon
42. "In my Future of an Illusion I was concerned [...] with what the ordinary man understands by his religion, that system of doctrines and pledges that on the one hand explains the riddle of this world to him with an enviable completeness, and on the other assures him that a solicitous Providence is watching over him and will make up to him in a future existence for any shortcomings in this ife. The ordinary man cannot imagine this Providence in any other from but that of a greatly exalted father, for only such a one could understand the needs of the sons of men, or be softened by their prayers and placated by the signs of their remorse. The whole thing is so patently infantile, so incongruous with reality, that to one whose attitude to humanity is friendly it is painful to think that the great majority of mortals will never be able to rise about this view of life."
Author: Sigmund Freud
43. "Those who remarked in the countenance of this young hero a dissolute audacity mingled with extreme haughtiness ... could not yet deny to his countenance that sort of comeliness which belongs to an open set of features, well formed by nature, modeled by art to the usual rules of courtesy, yet so far frank and honest, that they seemed as if they disclaimed to conceal the natural working of the soul."
Author: Sir Walter Scott
44. "Here, her hand in mine was the one reality that severed us from the cold click-clack of Hell. I rubbed her hand and she sighed; wasn't that meaning? Wasn't that something we could cling to? I could be with this other. I could form no other relation, but maybe her hand in mine was enough, both sufficient and necessary. In Hell there was no sense of place, because all places were the same. Uniform monotony. A place without place. A place without context. But, here, now, I could rub her hand and she would sigh. She was a difference. Perhaps each person was the only difference in all these halls of unchanging ranks of books, kiosks, clocks, and carpet, and that, and that, at least, we had to hold to."
Author: Steven L. Peck
45. "We like to think of individuals as unique. Yet if this is true of everyone, then we all share the same quality, namely our uniqueness. What we have in common is the fact that we are all uncommon. Everybody is special, which means that nobody is. The truth, however, is that human beings are uncommon only up to a point. There are no qualities that are peculiar to one person alone. Regrettably, there could not be a world in which only one individual was irascible, vindictive or lethally aggressive. This is because human beings are not fundamentally all that different from each other, a truth postmodernists are reluctant to concede. We share an enormous amount in common simply by virtue of being human, and this is revealed by the vocabularies we have for discussing human character. We even share the social processes by which we come to individuate ourselves."
Author: Terry Eagleton
46. "The short conversation that follows eventually led to a tree religion. Its tenet of faith was this: a tree that was a good tree and led a clean decent and upstanding life could be assured of a future life after death. If it was very good indeed it would eventually be reincarnated as five thousand rolls of lavatory paper."
Author: Terry Pratchett
47. "A better man wouldn't play this ‘sweethearts' game with her when he knew very well it couldn't lead to more.But he wasn't a better man. He was Colin Sandhurst, reckless, incorrigible rogue—and damn it, he couldn't resist. He wanted to amuse her, spoil her, feed her sweets and delicacies. Steal a kiss or two, when she wasn't expecting it. He wanted to be a besotted young buck squiring his girl around the fair.In other words, he wanted to live honestly. Just for the day."
Author: Tessa Dare
48. "This was love at first sight, love everlasting: a feeling unknown, unhoped for, unexpected--in so far as it could be a matter of conscious awareness; it took entire possession of him, and he understood, with joyous amazement, that this was for life."
Author: Thomas Mann
49. "This is my right; it is the right of every human being. I choose not the suffocating anesthetic of the suburbs, but the violent jolt of the Capital, that is my choice. The meanest patient, yes, even the very lowest is allowed some say in the matter of her own prescription. Thereby she defines her humanity. I wish, for your sake, Leonard, I could be happy in this quietness. [pause]But if it is a choice between Richmond and death, I choose death.."
Author: Virginia Woolf
50. "It seemed like a mistake. And mistakes ought to be rectified, only this one couldn't be. Between the way things used to be and the way they were now was a void that couldn't be crossed. I had to find an explanation other than the real one, which was that we were no more immune to misfortune than anybody else, and the idea that kept recurring to me...was that I had inadvertently walked through a door that I shouldn't have gone through and couldn't get back to the place I hadn't meant to leave. Actually, it was other way round: I hadn't gone anywhere and nothing was changed, so far as the roof over our heads was concerned, it was just that she was in the cemetery."
Author: William Maxwell
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