It's incongruous that the older we get, the more likely we are to turn in the direction of religion. Less vivid and intense oursel...ves, closer to the grave, we begin to conceive of ourselves as immortal.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
At fifteen one is first beginning to realize that everything isn't money and power in this world, and is casting about for joys th...at do not turn to dross in one's hands.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The huge black clock hand is still at rest but is on the point of making its once-a-minute gesture; that resilient jolt will set a... whole world in motion. The clock face will slowly turn away, full of despair, contempt, and boredom, as one by one the iron pillars will start walking past, bearing away the vault of the station like bland atlantes; the platform will begin to move past, carrying off on an unknown journey cigarette butts, used tickets, flecks of sunlight and spittle; a luggage handcart will glide by, its wheels motionless; it will be followed by a news stall hung with seductive magazine covers--photographs of naked, pearl-gray beauties; and people, people, people on the moving platform, themselves moving their feet, yet standing still, striding forward, yet retreating as in an agonizing dream full of incredible effort, nausea, a cottony weakness in one's calves, will surge back, almost falling supine.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
O Jesse had a wife, a mourner all her life And the children they were brave,... But the dirty little coward that shot Mr. Howard He laid Jesse James in his grave.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I am convinced that the best service a retired general can perform is to turn in his tongue along with his suit, and to mothball h...is opinions.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Death can only be profitable: there's no need to eat, drink, pay taxes, offend people, and since a person lies in a grave for hund...reds or thousands of years, if you count it up the profit turns out to be enormous.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Marriage accustomed one to the good things, so one came to take them for granted, but magnified the bad things, so they came to fe...el as painful as a grain in one's eye. An open window, a forgotten quart of milk, a TV set left blaring, socks on the bathroom floor could become occasions for incredible rage. And something happened sexually in marriage--the swearing to forsake all others, despite its slight observance, had a profound effect. Some people felt trapped by it, impelled to assert what they called freedom. Some accepted it like a rein, and in the effort to avoid pain in the form of hopeless desire, cut off occasions of desire, avoided having long talks at parties with attractive members of the opposite sex. In time, all feeling for the opposite sex was cut off, and intercourse limited to the barest politenesses.... But something happened to you when you did that, a kind of death seeped up from the genitals to the rest of the body, till it showed in the eyes, the gestures, in a certain lifelessness.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »