There are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents ... and only one for birthday presents, you kn...ow.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I am this month one whole year older than I was this time twelve-month; and having got ... almost into the middle of my fourth vol...ume--and no farther than to my first day's life--'tis demonstrative that I have three hundred and sixty-four days more life to write just now, than when I first set out ... write as I will ... I shall never overtake myself.... At the worst I shall have one day the start of my pen--and one day is enough for two volumes--and two volumes will be enough for one year.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I see that every man that went in had his pockets bulging, or something muffled up under his coat--and I see it warn't no perfumer...y either, not by a long sight. I smelt sickly eggs by the barrel, and rotten cabbages, and such things; and if I know the signs of a dead cat being around, and I bet I do, there was sixty-four of them went in. I shoved in there for a minute, but it was too various for me, I couldn't stand it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I was a sophomore in college when everything went down the drain. I never thought it would happen. It was like the end of the worl...d. We had those great plush years. I remember the house. The kid's [sic] say, "Is that your house?" The schools we went to, Palm Springs, inviting your friends down for the weekends, swimming pools, fancy dresses. It was all tied up with my father. Finally I had to face my father being a real person.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Age affects how people experience time. The observations on this are well known, so it is only necessary to outline briefly what h...as been the experience of everyone I have ever talked to or read about: the years go faster as one gets older. At the age of four or six, a year seems interminable; at sixty, the years begin to blend and are frequently hard to separate from each other because they move so fast! There are, of course, a number of common-sense explanations for this sort of thing. If you have only lived five years, a year represents 20 percent of your life; if you have lived fifty years, that same year represents only 2 percent of your life, and since lives are lived as wholes, this logarithmic element would make it difficult to maintain the same perspective on the experience of a year's passage throughout a lifetime.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I've been aboard this destroyer for two weeks now, and we've already been through four air attacks. I'm in the war at last, Doc. I... caught up with that task force that passed me by. I'm glad to be here. I had to be here, I guess. But I'm thinking now of you, Doc, and you, Frank, and Dolan, and Dawdy, and Insignia, and everyone else on that bucket. All the guys everywhere who sailed from tedium to apathy and back again with an occasional sidetrip to monotony. This is a tough crew on here and they have a wonderful battle record. But I've discovered, Doc, that the unseen enemy of this war is the boredom that eventually becomes a faith and, therefore, a terrible sort of suicide. And I know now that the ones who refuse to surrender to it are the strongest of all. Right now, I'm looking at something that's hanging over my desk, a preposterous hunk of brass attached to the most bilious piece of ribbon I've ever seen. I'd rather have it than the Congressional Medal of Honor. It tells me what I'll always be proudest of, that at a time in the world when courage counted most, I lived among sixty-two brave men. So Doc, and especially you, Frank, don't let those guys down.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Two men live sixty-three years each. They meet face to face four times. One is superbly handsome, the finest flower of a civilizat...ion now vanished. The other is short and awkward both physically and in manner, the type of fellow (according to H.L. Mencken) who would say to you: "Meet the wife." Yet the society that one symbolizes is narrow and provincial, grooved, rooted, and the world of the other is wide, expanding, youthful, growing.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
One who has not only the four S's, which are required in every good lover, but even the whole alphabet; as for example ... Agreeab...le, Bountiful, Constant, Dutiful, Easy, Faithful, Gallant, Honourable, Ingenious, Kind, Loyal, Mild, Noble, Officious, Prudent, Quiet, Rich, Secret, True, Valiant, Wise; the X indeed, is too harsh a letter to agree with him, but he is Young and Zealous.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »