"The General, speaking one felt with authority, always insisted that, if you bring off adequate preservation of your personal myth, nothing much else in life matters. It is not what happens to people that is significant, but what they think happens to them." Anthony Powell, Books Do Furnish a Room
Tag: Fiction
Donna Tartt Quote
“Some things are too terrible to grasp at once. Other things - naked, sputtering, indelible in their horror - are too terrible to really grasp ever at all. It is only later, in solitude, in memory that the realization dawns: when the ashes are cold; when the mourners have departed; when one looks around and … Continue reading Donna Tartt Quote
David Foster Wallace Quote
"What goes on inside is just too fast and huge and all interconnected for words to do more than barely sketch the outlines of at most one tiny little part of it at any given instant." David Foster Wallace
George Saunders on Fiction
"Fiction is a kind of compassion-generating machine that saves us from sloth. Is life kind or cruel? Yes, Literature answers. Are people good or bad? You bet, says Literature. But unlike other systems of knowing, Literature declines to eradicate one truth in favor of another; rather, it teaches us to abide with the fact that, … Continue reading George Saunders on Fiction
Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
“How often do we tell our own life story? How often do we adjust, embellish, make sly cuts? And the longer life goes on, the fewer are those around to challenge our account, to remind us that our life is not our life, merely the story we have told about our life. Told to others, … Continue reading Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
A Visit From The Goon Squad
“If I had a view like this to look down on every day, I would have the energy and inspiration to conquer the world. The trouble is, when you most need such a view, no one gives it to you.” Jennifer Egan, A Visit From The Goon Squad
Jason Segel on Playing David Foster Wallace
An excerpt from the NY Times piece: Jason Segel Makes a Career U-Turn as David Foster Wallace in ‘The End of the Tour’: "To play Wallace, he [Jason Segel] said he worked to strip away any vanity or hint of pretense or self-satisfaction, and strived, moment by moment, to be as honest and empathetic as he … Continue reading Jason Segel on Playing David Foster Wallace
Alex de Campi Quote
“There's nothing on Earth like really nailing the last line of a big book. You have 200 pages to tickle their fancy, and seven words to break their heart.” Alex de Campi
Tom Rachman Quote
"Among new children, she always spotted the outcasts first, and had read enough novels to prefer them. Sometimes this let her down- certain kids deserved social banishment. But hidden among the losers, she suspected, were her kind. What she longed for was a person who'd say, as none ever had, 'This is all so fake, … Continue reading Tom Rachman Quote
from The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer
“But, she knew, you didn’t have to marry your soulmate, and you didn’t even have to marry an Interesting. You didn’t always need to be the dazzler, the firecracker, the one who cracked everyone up, or made everyone want to sleep with you, or be the one who wrote and starred in the play that … Continue reading from The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer
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