anaca's shelf

liked

recent

anaca

14d

“‘Be quiet. I have no idea how you’ve managed to deceive yourself to such an extent. I’m weak, good-for-nothing, I’m racked with indecision, I lack what everyone else has — the ability to die inside and come back to life. I don’t like life or people, and I’m afraid of them like most people are, probably even more than most people. I’m not free, I haven’t really enjoyed anything for a long time, and I’m not honest because I didn’t tell you anything about myself for so long, and now, when I do, it’s so difficult.’”
—Evgenii Petrovich

anaca

1mo

“The poet woman took a small road to the rear of the empty lot, then trudged on without looking back. Gradually her footsteps grew swifter. She headed straight to the heart of the darkness, which lacked even a single point of light, and where not even the road beneath her feet could be seen. Like a blind owl, she walked as one with the darkness, undisturbed by it. The sight called up in Buha simultaneous awe and fear. The barking of dogs drew closer. It occurred to Buha that pursuing the poet woman any further might result in needless terror and agitation, for her or else for himself. That was not what Buha wanted. He did not want the poet woman to turn around, having sensed a human presence. He didn’t want her to see him. He didn’t want her to know him. And so he stood, rooted to the spot. The woman’s shadow was swiftly swallowed up into the abyss of darkness.”
—Narrator

anaca

1mo

“If we can’t convince a single person, not anyone at all, and if no one has any interest in our graves, you say we can simply turn away and go alone into the wilderness. Without knowing where it is we’re going. We might have to spend our days with only the sheep and stars to gaze at. The stars die and are born again, and it must be the same for the sheep, mustn’t it? You’d say that the world is unchanging. But if we lived like that, and eventually lost even the sad consciousness of our own inability to convince, that would be incredibly lonely, Ayami.”
—The director

anaca

1mo

“‘No, Cheol-sseok, Kim Cheol-sseok.’ ‘That can’t have been his real name, can it?’ ‘I asked that, and he said it was a pen name, something he’d made up.’ ‘Did he explain what it’s supposed to mean?’ ‘Apparently it’s the sound of earth being poured onto his coffin.’ (...) ‘He also said,’ the director’s voice continued, ‘that he’d never once managed to convince another person of anything. Whenever he spoke to anyone, their response amounted to nothing more than the world tossing a shovelful of earth onto his grave. Which meant that by this point in his life, he was buried deep, very deep; he laughed for a long time after he said that, bleating like a goat.’”
—The director

anaca

1mo

“Three old cowboys, one of them former Ranger, stopped by to see him in the first week. (...)he let them do the talking. He felt like an impostor. He was no longer the man who had lived the old times; he was no longer even the man who had killed Mox Mox. That man was not the cripple who lived in a granary, in a barn on the Quitaque. That man lived back somewhere in memory, across a canyon, across the Pecos; that man had been blown away, as Brookshire feared he would be, on the plains of time. The cowboys felt awkward. He clearly did not want to see them. They regretted coming, and they left, disquieted by what had happened to a man they had once regarded as invicible.”
—Narrator

anaca

2mo

“I can’t stand THE DEPRESSED. It’s like a job, it’s the only thing they work hard at. Oh good my depression is very well today. Oh good today I have another mysterious symptom and I will have another one tomorrow. The DEPRESSED are full of hate and bile and when they are not having panic attacks they are writing poems. What do they want their poems to DO? Their depression is the most VITAL thing about them. Their poems are threats. ALWAYS threats. There is no sensation that is keener or more active than their pain. They give nothing back except their depression. It’s just another utility. Like electricity and water and gas and democracy. They could not survive without it. GOD, I’M SO THIRSTY. WHERE’S CLAUDE ?”
—Arsehole poet

anaca

3mo

“Je sais de science certaine que chacun la porte en soi, la peste, parce que personne, non, personne au monde n’en est indemne. Et qu’il faut se surveiller sans arrêt pour ne pas être amené, dans une minute de distraction, à respirer dans la figure d’un autre et à lui coller l’infection. Ce qui est naturel, c’est le microbe. Le reste, la santé, l’intégrité, la pureté, si vous voulez, c’est un effet de la volonté et d’une volonté qui ne doit jamais s’arrêter. L’honnête homme, celui qui n’infecte personne, c’est celui qui a le moins de distraction possible. Et il en faut de la volonté et de la tension pour ne jamais être distrait ! Oui, Rieux, c’est bien fatigant d’être un pestiféré. Mais c’est encore plus fatigant de ne pas vouloir l’être. C’est pour ça que tout le monde se montre fatigué, puisque tout le monde, aujourd’hui, se trouve un peu pestiféré.”
—Tarrou

anaca

3mo

“Outside in the street, he replaced his hat carefully, conscious of an onerous task accomplished, though not with honour. He shrugged. He had done his best. He was only human, he sighed, and there, in the dark, there was no one to express the slightest shadow of disapprobation.”
—Narrator

anaca

3mo

“Home in fact was a concept, like the grail; in both cases instant recognition would be its own reward.”
—Narrator

anaca

3mo

“At first wasn’t sure I’d make it back to the boat and then I realized I didn’t want to make it back to the boat. Chaos is supposed to be what we most fear but I have come to believe it might be what we most want. If we don’t believe in the future we are planning, the house we are mortgaged to, the person who sleeps by your side, it is possible that a tempest (long lurking in the clouds) might bring us closer to how we want to be in the world.”
—Deborah Levy

anaca

anaca

Similar shelves

Hermits

anaca

11 books

anaca

anaca

anaca

anaca

anaca

anaca

anaca

anaca

anaca

anaca