Quotes Worth Keeping

resurrected

[litquotes]

He had gone down to the kitchen in the early hours of a bitter December morning; he had built the fire, and had then sat down at the table to write something, and there he died, with pencil in hand and resting against the paper in the middle of an unfinished word -- an indication that his release from the captivity of a long and troubled and pathetic and unprofitable life was mercifully swift and painless.

-- Mark Twain, The Autobiography

[litquotes]

The historian is insensitive to the most disgusting things; or rather, he especially enjoys those things that should be repugnant to him. His apparent serenity follows from his concerted avoidance of the exceptional and his reduction of all things to the lowest common denominator. Nothing is allowed to stand above him; and underlying his desire for total knowledge is his search for the secrets that belittle everything: "base curiosity." What is the source of history? It comes from the plebs. To whom is it addressed? To the plebs. And its discourse strongly resembles the demagogue's refrain: "No one is greater than you and anyone who presumes to get the better of you-you who are good-is evil." The historian, who functions as his double, can be heard to echo: "No past is greater than your present, and, through my meticulous erudition, I will rid you of your infatuations and transform the grandeur of history into pettiness, evil, and misfortune." --Michel Foucault, "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History"

[litquotes]

“Books are the perfect entertainment: no commercials, no batteries, hours of enjoyment for each dollar spent. What I wonder is why everybody doesn’t carry a book around for those inevitable dead spots in life.” ― Stephen King

[litquotes]

"Every time I come home, I discover something new, which negates something in the past." --Mo Yan, "Abandoned Child," Shifu, You'll Do Anything For A Laugh

[litquotes]

“Certainly man does not get exactly what he wants in this world, and who can say that a wife and a home and a position in the world are not, after all, the end of every man’s desire.” --William Faulkner, The Cop

[litquotes]

"I wanted to ask him: why are Americans always searching for something when clearly there is nothing to be found?"

--Gary Shteyngart, Absurdistan

[litquotes]

"I wrote the asinine words ‘liquor is literature’ and ‘people who are strangers to liquor are incapable of talking about literature’ when I was good and drunk, and you must not take them to heart."

--Mo Yan, The Republic of Wine

[litquotes]

Susy died at the right time, the fortunate time of life; the happy age -- twenty-four years old. At twenty-four, such a girl has seen the best of life -- life has been as a happy dream. After that age the risks begin; responsibility comes, and with it the cares, the sorrows, and the inevitable tragedy. For her mother's sake I would have brought her back from the grave if I could, but I would not have done it for my own.

Mark Twain, The Autobiography

[litquotes]

Blackness is a label that I do not have a choice in rejecting as long as systemic barriers exist in this country. But also, my blackness is an honor, and as long as I continue to live, I will always esteem it as such.

Morgan Jerkins, This Will Be My Undoing

[litquotes]

It was a very good unconsciousness for a person who had not rehearsed the part.

Mark Twain, The Autobiography of Mark Twain

[litquotes]

...suddenly the idea came to me that all great books and pictures aren't about love at all. They only pretend to be about love so they'll be interesting to read. But in actual fact, they're about death.

Mikhail Shishkin, The Light and the Dark

[litquotes]

Just what kind of thought process could lead to hanging one's own children cutting down one's own wife shooting oneself and asking fellow tribesmen to jump to their death off a cliff what kind of notion of dignity could lead to these actions, can leaving behind a name in history and a memorial statue that overlooks the falling sakura each year even compare with the feeling of embracing another naked body? Is the orgasmic excitement of sex somehow unable to compare with the tense excitement of cutting off someone's head?

Wu He, Remains of Life

[litquotes]

...loneliness is something that must be addressed early on otherwise once you are older you will end up like a little mouse waiting to be eaten by the big cat of loneliness...

Wu He, Remains of Life

[litquotes]

...commas are like empty cracks, they represent pure silence pure inaction, they do not reflect on the past nor do they think about the future...

Wu He, Remains of Life

[litquotes]

A novel is like a mountain. Like Mount Rainier. You ever seen Mount Rainier? It’s like you’re looking at God. It’s so gorgeous and dynamic and powerful and meaningful. Then as you walk toward it, things change. At one point, it’s not even a mountain anymore. There’s an incline, but you don’t see the whole thing. There are different levels. When you get to the top, you look out from the mountain and it’s just as majestic because now you’re looking from God’s point of view. So the novel is a mountain. Now, the short story is an island—some trees and a beach and a little creature running around. You go on the island, but then you realize that underneath it is a mountain, but it’s just underwater, so you never see it. You have to describe the whole mountain, but only from the point of view of that island. Whatever detritus gets washed up, whatever the weather is there, whatever is happening underneath, you have to somehow give that to the reader without making it explicit.

Walter Mosley, The Art of Fiction No. 234, Paris Review

[litquotes]

...those who rebel against something and those who fight to safeguard something are simply expressing two sides of the same coin, what they both fight for is dignity...

Wu He, Remains of Life

[litquotes]

Each generation brings a new group of men who have not yet learned the guilt of the last. They need to feel bones breaking under their very own fingers to know for sure how they feel about it.

Shawna Yang Ryan, Green Island