Quotes - Page 336 | Just Great DataBase

People say I must be cold–natured—sexless—on account of it. But I won’t have it! Some of the most passionately erotic poets have been the most self–contained in their daily lives.

-Hey, listen," I said. "You know those ducks in that lagoon right near Central Park South? That little lake? By any chance, do you happen to know where they go, the ducks, when it gets all frozen over? Do you happen to know, by any chance?" I realized it was only one chance in a million.

I'm p-paralyzed with happiness." - She laughed again, as if she said something very witty, and held my hand for a moment, looking up into my face, promising that there was no one in the world she so much wanted to see. That was a way she had.

He could see the fish and he had only to look at his hands and feel his back against the stern to know that this had truly happened and was not a dream.

The Fawleys were not made for wedlock: it never seemed to sit well upon us. There's sommat in our blood that won't take kindly to the notion of being bound to do what we do readily enough if not bound. ...

Margot is very kind and would like me to confide in her, but I can’t tell her everything. She takes me too seriously, far too seriously, and spends a lot of time thinking about her loony sister, looking at me closely whenever I open my mouth and wondering, Is she acting, or does she really mean it?

He defined philosophy as the finding of bad reason for what one believes by instinct. As if one believed anything by instinct! One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them.

Real ugly girls have it tough. I feel so sorry for them sometimes. Sometimes I can't even look at them, especially if they're with some dopey guy that's telling them all about a goddam football game.

Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.

You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs, is what he says. We thought we could do better.Better? I say, in a small voice. How can he think this is better?Better never means better for everyone, he says. It always mean worse, for some.

Hi,' he said. He always said it like he was terrifically bored or terrifically tired. He didn't want you to think he was visiting you or anything. He wanted you to think he'd come in by mistake, for God's sake.

It was gratitude; gratitude, not merelyfor having once loved her, but for loving her still well enough to forgive all the petulance and acrimony of her manner in rejecting him.

I must hold his pain where it is, he thought. Mine does not matter. I can control mine. But his pain could drive him mad.

No average man will molest a woman by day or night, at home or abroad, unless she invites him. Until she says by a look "Come on" he is always afraid to, and if you never say it, or look it, he never comes.

Girls. Jesus Christ. They can drive you crazy.

There was so much to read for one thing and so much fine health to be pulled down out of the young breath-giving air. I bought a dozen volumes on banking and credit and investment securities and they stood on my shelf in red and gold like new money from the mint, promising to unfold the shining secrets that only Midas and Morgan and Maecenas knew. And I had the high intention of reading many other books besides. I was rather literary in college—one year I wrote a series of very solemn and obvious editorials for the ‘Yale News’—and now I was going to bring back all such things into my life and become again that most limited of all specialists, the ‘well-rounded man.’ This isn’t just an epigram—life is much more successfully looked at from a single window, after all.

You loved him when he was alive and you loved him after. If you love him, it is not a sin to kill him. Or is it more? 'You think too much, old man' he said aloud.

Sicché andò a finire che feci il tema sul guantone da baseball di mio fratello Allie. […] Mio fratello Allie, dunque aveva quel guantone da prenditore, il sinistro. Lui era mancino. La cosa descrittiva di quel guanto, però, era che c’erano scritte delle poesie su tutte le dita e il palmo e dappertutto. In inchiostro verde. Ce le aveva scritte lui, così aveva qualcosa da leggere quando stava ad asp...ettare e nessuno batteva. Ora è morto. Gli è venuta la leucemia ed è morto quando stavamo nel Maine, il 18 luglio del 1946. Vi sarebbe piaciuto. Aveva due anni meno di me, ma era cinquanta volte più intelligente di me. Era di un’intelligenza fantastica. […] Aveva solo tredici anni e loro volevano farmi psicanalizzare e compagnia bella perché avevo spaccato tutte le finestre del garage. Non posso biasimarli. Ho dormito nel garage la notte che lui è morto, e ho spaccato col pugno tutte quelle dannate finestre, così, tanto per farlo. Ho tentato anche di spaccare tutti i finestrini della giardinetta che avevamo quell’estate, ma a quel punto mi ero già rotto la mano eccetera eccetera, e non ho potuto. È stata una cosa proprio stupida, chi lo nega, ma io quasi non sapevo nemmeno quello che stavo facendo, e poi voi non conoscevate Allie.

Only a short time ago, I learned that people laughed at me. Now I can see that unknowingly I joined them in laughing at myself. That hurts most of all.

rolling eye balls