He’s telling you that living things don’t last—it’s all temporary. Death in life.
Henry. Please. I was on the verge of tears. What's the matter with you? Have you lost your mind? Don't you understand what's going on? He stood up, dusted his hands on his trousers.
He was a planet without an atmosphere. x.
He was a marvelous talker, a magical talker, and I wish I were able to give a better idea what he said, but it is impossible for a mediocre intellect to render the speech of a superior one
He played with relish, sleeves rolled up, smiling at his work, tinkling from the low ranges to the high with the tricky syncopation of a tap dancer going up a Ziegfeld staircase.
Hampden College, as a body, was always strangely prone to hysteria. Whether from isolation, malice, or simple boredom, people there were far more credulous and excitable than educated people are gener...
Goyen there. Sadly not for sale. Van Goyen? I would have sworn that was a Corot. From here, yes, you might. He was pleased at the comparison. Very similar painters—Vincent
George Sanders's had been the best, an Old Hollywood classic, my father had known it by heart and liked to quote from it.
For if the modern mind is whimsical and discursive, the classical mind is narrow, unhesitating, relentless. It is not a quality of intelligence that one encounters frequently these days. But though I...
Few years ago, we were up north in Canada, in Alberta, this one-street town off the Pouce Coupe River? Dark the whole time, October to March, and fuck-all to do except read and listen to CBC radio. Ha...
Era una quietud que yo conocía bien: así se encerraba en sí misma una casa cuando alguien moría.
El mundo no acudirá a mí, solía decir, yo tengo que salir a su encuentro.
Does such a thing as 'the fatal flaw,' that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature? I used to think it didn't. Now I think it does. And I think that mine is this:...
Different cultures and all that, but it’s true what they say about the Japanese being undemonstrative.
Caring too much for objects can destroy you. Only -- if you take care for a thing enough, it takes on a life of its own, doesn't it? And isn't the whole point of things -- beautiful things -- that the...
Can’t good come around sometimes through some strange back doors?
But how, said Charles, who was close to tears, how can you possibly justify cold-blooded murder?’ Henry lit a cigarette. I prefer to think of it, he had said, as redistribution of matter.
Boris shrugged. Who cares? If he is good to you? None of us ever find enough kindness in the world, do we?
Because: if our secrets define us, as opposed to the face we show the world: then the painting was the secret that raised me above the surface of life and enabled me to know who I am. And it's there:...
Be still, O little one, for I am Death. Another cobra had said that, in something else by Kipling. The cobras in his stories were heartless but they spoke beautifully, like wicked kings in the Old Tes...