paginations

this is where i collect bits of the books that i'm reading, as i read them. feel free to follow along. this is part two of my collection. part one is here, if it interests you.

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Sometimes, here in England, especially at bus stops and on the daytime soaps, you heard people say "We're involved with each other," as if this were a most wonderful state to be in, as if one chose it and enjoyed it. Alsana never thought of it that way. Involved happened over a long period of time, pulling you in like quicksand. . . . Involved is neither good nor bad. It is just a consequence of living, a consequence of occupation and immigration, of empires and expansion, of living in each other's pockets . . . one becomes involved and it is a long trek back to being uninvolved.

Zadie Smith, White Teeth

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...it had not been enough for Captain Charlie Durham -- recently posted to Jamaica -- to impregnate his landlady's adolescent daughter one drunken evening in the Bowden larder, May 1906. He was not satisfied with simply taking her maidenhood. He had to teach her something as well.

Zadie Smith, White Teeth

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Girls either wanted him or wanted to improve him, but most often a combination of the two. They wanted to improve him until he justified the amount they wanted him.

Zadie Smith, White Teeth

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You go back and back and back and it's still easier to find the correct Hoover bag than to find one pure person, one pure faith, on the globe. Do you think anybody is English? Really English? It's a fairy tale!

Zadie Smith, White Teeth

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You are never stronger, thought Samad as he approached the doctor, than when you land on the other side of despair.

Zadie Smith, White Teeth

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Please. Do me this one, great favor, Jones. If ever you hear anyone, when you are back home -- if you, if we, get back to our respective homes -- if ever you hear anyone speak of the East," and here his voice plummeted a register, and the tone was full and sad, "hold your judgment. If you are told 'they are all this' or 'they do this' or 'their opinions are these,' withhold your judgment until all the facts are upon you. Because that land they call 'India' goes by a thousand names and is populated by millions, and if you think you have found two men the same among that multitude, then you are mistaken. It is merely a trick of the moonlight.

Zadie Smith, White Teeth

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I go to the museum and look at the Egypt rooms. The goddesses remind me of you. There are jars with cats' heads that hold the hearts of the dead. This city is like an old forest or house that you think's just rotting away and then you see there's magic inside.

Francesca Lia Block, Dangerous Angels: Missing Angel Juan

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You used to guard my sleep like a panther biting back my pain with the edge of your teeth. You carried me into the dark dream jungle, loping past the hungry vines, crossing the shiny fish-scale river. We left my tears behind in a chiming silver pool. We left my sorrow in the muddy hollows. When I woke up you were next to me, damp and matted, your eyes hazy, trying to remember the way I clung to you, how far down we went.

Francesca Lia Block, Dangerous Angels: Missing Angel Juan

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My feelings have never once cared about what they should be.

Jonathan Safran Foer, Here I Am

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My mind wandered to all those years of school portraits: the licked palms wrestling cowlicks under the pretense of a loving stroke; letting the boys watch a cartoon while sliding them into handsome, uncomfortable clothes; clumsy efforts to subliminally communicate the value of a "natural" smile. The pictures always came out the same: a forced grin with unparted lips, eyes vacantly gazing into the haze -- something from the Diane Arbus scrap pile. But I loved them. I loved the truth they conveyed: that kids aren't yet able to fake it. Or they aren't yet able to conceal their disingenuousness. They're wonderful smilers, the best; but they're the very worst fake smilers. The inability to fake a smile defines childhood.

Jonathan Safran Foer, Here I Am

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I guess I was raised to understand that I'm not worthy of all that came before me. But no one ever prepared me for the knowledge that I'm not worthy of all that will come after me, either.

Jonathan Safran Foer, Here I Am

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In the beginning, God created the earth, and he looked upon it in His cosmic loneliness. And God said, "Let Us make living creatures out of mud, so the mud can see what We have done." And God created every living creature that now moveth, and one was man. Mud as man alone could speak. God leaned close as mud as man sat up, looked around, and spoke. Man blinked. "What is the purpose of all this?" he asked politely. "Everything must have a purpose?" asked God. "Certainly," said man. "Then I leave it to you to think of one for all this," said God. And He went away.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. — Cat’s Cradle

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Tiger got to hunt, Bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder, "why, why, why?" Tiger got to sleep, Bird got to land; Man got to tell himself he understand.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. — Cat’s Cradle

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She broke my heart. I didn't like that much. But that was the price. In this world, you get what you pay for.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. — Cat’s Cradle

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I just have trouble understanding how truth, all by itself, could be enough for a person.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. — Cat’s Cradle

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This isn't about what it is. It's about what people think it is. It's all imaginary anyway. That's why it's important. People only fight over imaginary things.

Neil Gaiman — American Gods

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It's easier to believe in aliens than in gods.

Neil Gaiman — American Gods