"...she had turned and left, .. by another door, the door of decisions, which is rarely used, but when it is used, it decidedly is." "So you want to go with me in search of the unknown island, I left the palace by the door of decisions, ..." "Liking is probably the best form of ownsership, and ownership the worst form of liking." "He woke up with his arms about [her], and her arms about him, their bodies and their bunks fused into one, so that no one can tell any more if this is port or starboard. Then, as soon as the sun had risen, the man and the woman went to paint in white letters on both sides of the prow the name that the caravel still lacked. Around midday, with the tide, The Unknown Island finally set to sea, in search of itself." (Saramago, O Conto da Ilha Desconhecida) "It always seems much more likely, and more economical as a hypothesis... that a last-minute accident will send me back to where I started, or to the bottom of the sea, than that an entire country and the immense machinery involved in starting a new life will appear eventually like an outstretched hand down below." Guillermo Martinez, Crimenes Imposibles (Oxford Murders) mamihlapinatapai, an alleged Tierra del Fuegan word meaning "a look shared by two people with each wishing that the other will initiate something that both desire but which neither one wants to start" Medea: "Loathing is endless. Hate is a bottomless cup; I pour and pour." i shook his hand and turned away. i hated poignant good-byes. they can stay with you for months. for years. (Duong Tha Huong, Novel without a name) these were only words. you throw them like a bridge between regret and despair. If only... (Duong Tha Huong, Novel without a name) "But I revealed nothing of my anguish, gave no sign or word. I can take shelter in this small achievement: I behaved respectfully. I didn't lean toward her, didn't touch her shiny dark hair. In that moment I became a foot soldier, moving through a landscape of desire, under orders to resist the sight of nature's perfect form. ... And as she rose to leave, I shook her hand, said "It's been a pleasure meeting you." It was an abusrd understatement, but the words of a gentleman." " (Paul Lutus) "Alan had spent his whole life drunk on trivial things from others' lives that no one else noticed and he'd developed the alcoholic's knack of disguising his intoxication." (Doctorow, Someone comes to town, someone leaves town) Gustavo Yepes: "In a dream you aren't limited by what is assumed to be permissible or possible." (Gaviotas) Saudade: A yearning so intense for those who are missing, or for vanished times or places, that their absence is the most profound presence in one's life. A state of being, rather than merely a sentiment. (Miguel Cardoso?) German Literature on Accomplice Liability: A friend pointed me to this expression by Karl May (1842-1912), a German novelist: "Mitgegangen, mitgefangen, mitgehangen," which basically means "gone with, caught with, hanged with." Naturally, like "trust but verify" (dover'ay no prover'ay) and "forewarned is forearmed" (praemonitus, praemunitus), it works best in the original. (Volokh 2/7/05) 'It's good of you,' he began and stopped. He was afraid if he once began making ke up with his armathe small talk of a stranger, they would be condemned for life to that shadowy relationship. The weather would lie heavily on their tongues, and they would meet occasionally and talk about the theatre. When they passed in the street he would raise his hat, and something which was only just alive would be safely and hopelessly dead. (Graham Greene, Ministry of Fear) "the experience was as new to him as adolescent love: he had the blind passionate innocence of a boy: like a boy he was driven relentlessly towards inevitable suffering, loss and despair, and called it happiness." (Graham Greene, Ministry of Fear) Morkin is an obsolete word meaning "a beast that has died of disease or by mischance." Mokita: truth that everybody knows but nobody speaks (Kiriwina, New Guinea) "The notion of time, upset since the day before, disappeared completely. Then there was no Thursday. What should have been Thursday was a physical, jellylike thing that could have been parted with the hands in order to look into Friday." Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Monologue of Isabel, Eyes of a Blue Dog "She bore the conscientious serenity of someone accustomed to poverty." Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Tuesday Siesta, Big Mama's Funeral "However, he himself did not realize that he had become so subtle in his thinking that for at least three years in his meditative moments he was no longer thinking about anything." Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Day After Saturday, Big Mama's Funeral "Fate is not an eagle, it creeps like a rat." Elizabeth Bowen "PCR was developed in 1985 by Kerry Mullis, a scientist then with Cetus, a California biotechnology company. The discovery earned him a Nobel Prize in 1993. Mullis subsequently gave up science in favor of surfing and recreational drugs." Cole, Anthrax Letters, p 29 "In May 1966, after several days of debate, the 120-odd member states voted to support an eradication campaign [of smallpox] by a margin of two votes." Cole, Anthrax Letters, p 121 "It was as if the woman had become addicted to melancholia as one becomes addicted to opium. Her sadness becomes her happiness." -John Fowles, The French Lieutenant's Woman "It is, of course, its essentially schizophrenic outlook on society that makes the middle class such a peculiar mixture of yeast and dough. We tend nowadays to forget that it has always been the great revolutionary class; we see much more the doughy aspect, the bourgeoisie as the heartland of reaction, the universal insult, for ever selfish and conforming" -John Fowles, The French Lieutenant's Woman "but when one is oneself the fuel, firefighting is a hopeless task." -John Fowles, The French Lieutenant's Woman "I might go on, naught else remained to do." Robert Browning, "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" "He who reaches the end of a road needs it no longer, and the road is not given to him any more" Milorad Pavic, Dictionary of the Khazars ?"A ab ... What a great word descent can obliterate the successful scaling of a mountain." Milorad Pavic, Dictionary of the Khazars "Because in dreams the past, forever captured within itself, gains freedom and new promise" Milorad Pavic, Dictionary of the Khazars "You tell me that I dream of an inky night and that only in your reality is there moonlight." Milorad Pavic, Dictionary of the Khazars "Study without imagination is blind; imagination without study is dangerous" -Confucius "When a person gets up in the morning, he doesn't have the slightest idea how much may have changed in his life by the time he lays his head down again that night." -Stephen King, LTs Theory of Pets "We would prefer that we didn't have students on the roofs." Dennis, S-P House Manager "Stupidity is like nuclear power: it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any of it on you." - Wally & Dilbert "Procrastination is like masturbation. It feels really good at first but in the end you realize you just fucked yourself." -anon "The lounge in the middle of Chamberlain Three had become my Jupiter - a scary planet with a huge gravitational pull." - extr. - sk. "Accept that some days you're the pigeon... and some days you're the statue." "When angry, count four. When very angry, swear." - Mark Twain "Carpe Ductum: Sieze the Duct Tape" - Red Green "The voice of the cold quiets whatever it touches, whatever it reaches, and it forces us to consider what a silence is..." - Barry Casselman "O you tender ones, walk now and then into the breath that blows coldly past. Upon your cheeks let it tremble and part; behind you it will tremble together again." - Rainer Maria Rilke "Propitious to the city GOD I ask Never to take away! God I will never cease to hold my stay." -Sophocles "belive me, hope harms a creature far more than despair ever did." -stephen baxter, manifold origin "The problem with any non-realistic medium is that it attracts people who have problems dealing with reality." - bonker "layin' back is a fine reward when you're employed. However, layin' back tends to wear thin when it itself becomes your job. Gettin' loaded, readin' magazines, staring at the television becomes a rut rather than any form of relaxation." -ben hamper, rivethead "'We've just been through all this. You can't undo what you said last week. You said you didn't want me. It hasn't worked between us. I've made my plans now. I'm going away.'" Rosie Richardson, Helen Fielding, Cause Celeb "I like it because it is bitter, and because it is my heart." Stephen Crane, The Heart "When panting sighs the bosom fill, And hands by chance united thrill At once with one delicious pain The pulses and the nerves of twain; When eyes that erst could meet with ease, Do seek, yet, seeking, shyly shun Ecstatic conscious unison,- The sure beginnings, say, be therse, Prelusive to the strain of love Which angels sing in heaven above?" A.H. Clough, Poems and Prose Remains, vol II, Love and Reason