Poverty said the same thing, century after century, but in different kinds of sentences.
There are many accounts of prison floors strewn with genitals, breasts, tongues, eyes and ears. Arma virumque cano, and Hitler-Stalin tells us this, among other things: given total power over another, the human being will find that his thoughts turn to torture.
They say that it is one of the most terrifying manifestations in nature: a bull elephant in a state of must. Twin streams of vile-smelling liquid flow from the ducts of the temples and into the corners of the jaws. At these times the great beast will gore giraffes and hippos, will break the backs of cringeing rhinoceri. This was male-elephantine heat. Must: it derived via Urdu from the Persian mast or maest – “intoxicated.” But I had settled for the modal verb. I must, I must, I just must.
Well, we cry and twist and are naked at both ends of life. We cry at both ends of life, while the doctor watches.
Suicide is the night train, speeding your way to darkness.
Whatever junk novels were, however they worked, they were close to therapy, and airports were close to therapy. They both belonged to the culture of the waiting room. Piped music, the language of calming suasion. Come this way – yes, the flight attendant will see you now. Airports, junk novels: they were taking your mind off mortal fear.
What could never be endured, it turned out, was the last swathe of time before sleep came, the path from larger day to huger night, a little death when the mind was still alive and fluttering. Thus.
The hot macadam pulled on his shoes, like desire...
Whether they soothe or snarl, cringe or strut, suicide notes do not seek to entertain. I.
The world is boiling. You hardly dare open a paper these days: the news is all of cataclysm and collapse. Tempers are threadbare; the yobs are winning; everybody accepts the fact that they’ve got to get nastier in order to survive. The world is going bad on us. I’m having nothing to do with it.
The past weaves all around this; we still duck in and out of its lost but shimmering kingdoms.
Perhaps, at such moments, the sky is no more than the sum of the dirt that lives in our human eyes.
In the solitude of my cell I have come to the bitter realisation that I have sinned gravely against humanity.
Suicide, like Aspirin, like everything else, costs money. And I didn’t have any. Unless you’re really brave, suicide is always gonna set you back a couple of bob.
Demi’s linguistic quirk is essentially and definingly female. It just is. Drawing in breath to denounce this proposition, women will often come out with something like, “Up you!” or “Ballshit!” For I am referring to Demi’s use of the conflated or mangled catchphrase – Demi’s speech-bargains: she wanted two for the price of one. The result was expressive, and you usually knew what she meant, given the context.
The criminal resembles the artist in his pretension, his incompetence, and his self-pity.
London is where people go in order to come back from it sadder and wiser.
But you’ve got to do it in the end. You have to end up with somebody. Because otherwise you go mad, or you start worrying about going mad, which is even worse. You can’t go on sleeping alone.
We’re nowhere near young enough for the present war, but when the world war comes – we’ll be just right to fight it. We are, after all, a superb physical specimen. Our feet aren’t flat. Our vision is clear. We’re not clubfooted or Marxist or nuts. We have no conscientious objections or anything of that kind. We’re perfect.
As so often when Mr Rhodes gets grateful and reverent, you have to read the sentence twice, even though you didn’t want to read it once.