Aroma of fresh bread led me to a bakery where a deformed woman with no nose sold me a dozen crescent-moon pastries. Only wanted one, but thought she had enough problems.
Girls fascinate in different ways. Try ’em one day. Tapped on the pane, and asked in French if she’d save my life by falling in love with me.
Now, lucky you can say, ‘Not standing up to him is giving him permission,’ but if you’ve been fed this diet since the year dot, there is no standing up. Victims aren’t cowards. Outsiders, like, they never have a clue how brave you have to be just to carry on.
Do we use the L-word because we mean it, or because we want to kid ourselves into thinking we’re still in that blissful state?
My heart’s a clubbed baby seal.
It is a cycle as old as tribalism. In the beginning there is ignorance. Ignorance engenders fear. Fear engenders hatred, and hatred engenders violence. Violence breeds further violence until the only law is whatever is willed by the most powerful.
Regular memories are courtroom sketches, elaborated and eroded at every viewing.
Snow is bruised lilac in half-lite: such pure solace. You speak like an aesthete sometimes, Sonmi. Perhaps those deprived of beauty perceive it most instinctively. So.
Sawing the head off a thunder god with a rusty hacksaw is not easy when you are eleven years old.
But the idea that you can no longer trust your mind, that’s just about the most frightening thing there is. When you mess around with proportion or symmetry, or when doubt is injected into your perception of the laws of physics, your mind ceases to be a refuge. Your mind is no longer a safe house.
Blame its user, blame its maker, but don’t blame the gun.
Because you cannot discern our differences, you believe we have none.
Laboring types surrounded me with bad teeth, parrot voices, and unfounded optimism.
A brain constructs a model of reality. If that model isn’t too different from most people’s model, you’re labeled sane. If the model is different, you’re labeled a genius, a misfit, a visionary, or a nutcase. In extreme cases, you’re labeled a schizophrenic and locked up.
Tough,” he enunciated, “titty!
Ah, to be young... and be right about the ways of the world by default.
De wereld is al wankel genoeg.
Joy Division throbbed in the background.
I watched the stars and thought of other lives.
A twig snaps. I am intensely alive.