words to grind your teeth to

A collection of passages from books I'm currently reading.

[strikingpassages]

"If all this little voice of mine gets to do is tell Oblivion to fuck right off, then that's enough for me."

--Chuck Tingle, Lucky Day

[edwardian-girl-next-door]

"Why, I wonder, do people who at one time or another have all been young themselves, and who ought therefore to know better, generalise so suavely and mendaciously about the golden hours of youth — that period in life when every sorrow seems permanent, and every set-back insuperable?"

Vera Brittain, Testament of Youth (1933)

[oldshrewsburyian]

Larry stared at her a moment, breathing deeply. 'What a masterly understatement,' he said at last; 'you are always ready with the apt platitude to sum up a catastrophe. How I envy you your ability to be inarticulate in the face of Fate.'

My Family and Other Animals, Gerald Durrell

[strikingpassages]

Taste is a kind of language, and siblings speak it with a forked tongue. As entwined as Esther and Ysabel were, there came a point in their childhood where their interests diverged. Like the Professors, they loved each other across the gap between them.

--Amal El-Mohtar, The River Has Roots

[strikingpassages]

"I worry about you a lot, son. I worry about you blaming yourself for the dead instead of blessing yourself for the living. The ones you saved."

--Stephen King, The Dead Zone

[oldshrewsburyian]

If she felt, beneath his amenity, a kind of delicate dangerousness, like that of some fine surgical instrument, she ignored it as unimportant; for she had as yet no clear perception of forces that did not directly affect her.

The Custom of the Country, Edith Wharton

[aseaofquotes]

Daphne Du Maurier, The Scapegoat

[strikingpassages]

Biology has no moral compass. It does not punish the evil and reward the good.

-- John Green, Everything Is Tuberculosis

[howieabel]

“Malthus declares in plain English that the right to live, a right previously asserted in favour of every man in the world, is nonsense. He quotes the words of a poet, that the poor man comes to the feast of Nature and finds no cover laid for him, and adds that ‘she bids him begone’, for he did not before his birth ask of society whether or not he is welcome. This is now the pet theory of all genuine English bourgeois, and very naturally, since it is the most specious excuse for them, and has moreover, a good deal of truth in it under existing conditions. If, then, the problem is not to make the ‘surplus population’ useful, to transform it into available population, but merely to let it starve to death in the least objectionable way and to prevent its having too many children, this, of course, is simple enough, provided the surplus population perceives its own superfluousness and takes kindly to starvation. There is, however, in spite of the strenuous exertions of the humane bourgeoisie, no immediate prospect of its succeeding in bringing about such a disposition among the workers. The workers have taken it into their heads that they, with their busy hands, are the necessary, and the rich capitalists, who do nothing, the surplus population.” ― Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England

[zielenna]

I found no calmness, no capacity for deliberation. I carried my lacerated and bloody soul when it was unwilling to be carried by me. I found no place where I could put it down. There was no rest in pleasant groves, nor in games or songs, nor in sweet-scented places, nor in exquisite feasts, nor in the pleasures of the bedroom and bed, nor, finally, in books and poetry. Everything was an object of horror, even light itself; all that was not he made me feel sick and was repulsive—except for groaning and tears. In them alone was there some slight relief. But when my weeping stopped, my soul felt burdened by a vast load of misery. I should have lifted myself to you, Lord, to find a cure. I knew that, but did not wish it or have the strength for it. When I thought of you, my mental image was not of anything solid and firm; it was not you but a vain phantom. My error was my god. If I attempted to find rest there for my soul, it slipped through a void and again came falling back upon me. I had become to myself a place of unhappiness in which I could not bear to be; but I could not escape from myself. Where should my heart flee to in escaping from my heart? Where should I go to escape from myself? Where is there where I cannot pursue myself? And yet I fled from my home town, for my eyes sought for him less in a place where they were not accustomed to see him. And so from the town of Thagaste I came to Carthage.

Augustine, Confessions, IV.vii (12), transl. Henry Chadwick

[strikingpassages]

"It has to be done. The cost of an act of power shouldn't be borne by anyone except the person who gains the most from it."

--Freya Marske, A Power Unbound

[derangedrhythms]

Like? he said. Is that all you want to be? Liked? Wouldn’t you rather be passionately and voraciously desired?

Margaret Atwood, Bodily Harm

[strikingpassages]

That apologetic smile again—Willy’s smile. It was the one Willy gave when he won at arm wrestling—and he had always won at arm wrestling. It was one that said: I’m sorry that I am bigger than you and stronger than you. I’m always going to win, but I’ll try not to hurt you when I do. It was the smile of a man who knew he possessed considerable strength, and found it faintly embarrassing.

Courtney Milan, The Duchess War

[strikingpassages]

I pretend my time as Monstrilio is hazy. Muffled sounds and blurred colors. I say I remember warmth. But I don’t say I miss my fur. I don’t say I’m hungry because my hunger is what makes everyone scared. They are happy to believe I forgot how they maimed me.

Gerardo Sámano Córdova, Monstrilio

[strikingpassages]

All Meg’s faults were uppermost in her now, and they were no longer helping her.

Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle In Time

[smokefalls]

The way you consume art doesn’t make you a bad person, or a good one. You’ll have to find some other way to accomplish that.

Claire Dederer, Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma

[deadpanwalking]

three

by Catullus

weep, Venus; Cupid, weep weep everyone who loves nice things the little bird is dead, her bird, the little bird, the darling, hers she loved it more than anything else in the world it was a sweet little thing why it knew her—they were maid and mother, like. it used to stay on her lap, never tried to get away it hopped around (there it goes! no, it’s going over this way! ) she was its mistress, it sang for her and not ever for anybody else. now it’s going along the dark, scary road down there and nobody comes back from there, they say. well, damn you anyway, damned night of hell anything that’s pretty you just have to gulp it down, don’t you? such a pretty little bird just had to grab it, didn’t you? it's just too damned bad. O birdie, birdie, birdie, see what you've done to her she’s crying, they're all swollen and red her lovely eyes.

Translated by Frank O. Copley