Don’t get your balls crossed about it.
Life,” Garp wrote, “is sadly not structured like a good old-fashioned novel. Instead an end occurs when those who are meant to peter out have petered out. All that is left is memory. But even a nihilist has memory.
My dear boy, ” Miss Frost said sharply. “My dear boy, please don’t put a label on me – don’t make a category before you get to know me!
We’ve been an empire in decline since I can remember,” Ketchum said bluntly; he wasn’t kidding. “We are a lost nation, Danny. Stop farting around.
I felt certain that if the world would stop indulging wars and famines and other perils, it would still be possible for human beings to embarrass each other to death. Our self-destruction might take a little longer that way, but I believe it would be no less complete.
Did the rhythm of the train on the tracks somehow unravel her and make her behave out of character? Was she altered in transit, when her feet were not upon the ground?
The White House, that whole criminal mob, those arrogant goons who see themselves as justified to operate above the law-they disgrace democracy by claiming that what they do they do for democracy! They should be in jail. They should be in Hollywood!
Wherever Melony went, she would not be without guidance, she would not be without love, without faith; she had a good book with her. If only she kept reading it and reading it...
Only the chicken-lover will understand me. He will give me a kindly look, maybe mildly desirous. His eyes will tell me: You might look a lot better with some reddish-brown feathers.
Garp discovered that when you are writing something, everything seems related to everything else.
I realize that a writer’s business is setting fire to Piggy Sneed-and trying to save him-again and again; forever.
Ruth thought of a novel as a great, untidy house, a disorderly mansion; her job was to make the place fit to live in, to give it at least the semblance of order. Only when she wrote was she unafraid.
Once again, Jack reached for her hand. It was the only thing he knew how to do. As it would turn out, it was about the only thing he reall knew.
Of course, everyone is intolerant of something or someone.
And so this added consideration – that she never get pregnant – contributed to the moderation of their coupling, which was almost always managed under conditions harsh enough to win the approval of New England’s founding fathers.
Because I was a Wheelwright-and, therefore, a New England snob-I’d assumed that Phoenix was largely composed of Mormons and Baptists and Republicans;.
According to my mother, I was a fiction writer before I’d written any ficton, by wich she meant not only that I invented things, or made things up, but that I prefered this kind of fantasising or pure imagining to what other people generally liked – she meant reality, of course.
It’s Shakespearean, Bill; lots of the important stuff in Shakespeare happens offstage – you just hear about it.
You’re not like anyone else, Billy – that’s what’s the matter with you,” Donna said.
Like any good novel, it lulled him into an almost tranquil state of awareness before it jolted him – it caught him completely by surprise.