novel

If a novelist were so uncouth and possessed of so little moral sense that he should write of illicit love, his book would be barred from the public libraries and he woukd be ostracized by society.

It was a hymn with the force of a march, a march with the majesty of a hymn. It was the song of soldiers bearing sacred banners and of priests carrying swords. It was an anthem to the sanctity of strength.

We took morphine, diamorphine, cyclozine, codeine, temazepam, nitrezepam, phenobarbitone, sodium amytal dextropropoxyphene, methadone, nalbuphine, pethidine, pentazocine, buprenorphine, dextromoramide chlormethiazole. The streets are awash with drugs that you can have for unhappiness and pain, and we took them all. Fuck it, we would have injected Vitamin C if only they'd made it illegal.

The virtuous are among the the weakest and quickest to sin

Vronsky meanwhile, in spite of the complete fulfilment of what he had so long desired, was not completely happy. He soon felt that the realization of his longing gave him only one grain of the mountain of bliss he had anticipated. That realization showed him the eternal error men make by imagining that happiness consists in the gratification of their wishes. When first he united his life with hers and donned civilian clothes, he felt the delight of freedom in general, such as he had not before known, and also the freedom of love__e was contented then, but not for long. Soon he felt rising in his soul a desire for desires__oredom. Involuntarily he began to snatch at every passing caprice, mistaking it for a desire and a purpose.

Love is always about losing something

I think politics is deadly to write about, frankly. If you have a political agenda and you set out to write a novel to prove that, say, capitalism should crumble, then it's going to be a really bad novel. Very few people have been able to deal with political fiction - Dickens, Dostoyevsky. But even Tolstoy got really tiresome when he was talking about the serfs. You have to let characters be characters, not [gruff voice] Mr Capitalism or [girlie voice] Miss Anti-Fur.

It takes skill to win a battle, but brains to win a war.

Oh, readers. If only you knew what we've gone through for you.

Writing is the only way to run away from home, without ever leaving.

Maybe. Just maybe... Lettie smiled. That would do. It might be an impossible plan but it's worth a try.

Mark Twin

And he always checks that he carries three things with him: faith, hope, and love.

To live is to walk beside Death but never join hands. ~ Captain Buck "Slackeye" Roberts

If you were crossing the road and saw a black cat passing, you may possibly get hit by a car, or a mail boy or the sky could rain in summer, possibly snow. Those were theories, none of them were true. It was like karma; it only happens to you if you believed in them. Myths, Cecilia called them. The guy looked frozen. This is silly, she thought. He could not be that affected by the cat. Cecilia had been working here for a year and she wasn__ struck by lightning, she was alive, of course, nobody chose the cat so this is why she was the oldest pet in the store.

His mind is like that. On the inside, where he never smiles.

The world is always full of the sound of waves.The little fishes, abandoning themselves to the waves, dance and sing, and play, but who knows the heart of the sea, a hundred feet down? Who knows it depth?

Good humour was miles behind a second cup of morning tea. It was too early for nonsense.