2
" Steadily, the room shrank, till the book thief could touch the shelves within a few small steps. She ran the back of her hand along the first shelf, listening to the shuffle of her fingernails gliding across the spinal cord of each book. It sounded like an instrument, or the notes of running feet. She used both hands. She raced them. One shelf against the other. And she laughed. Her voice was sprawled out, high in her throat, and when she eventually stopped and stood in the middle of the room, she spent many minutes looking from the shelves to her fingers and back again.
How many books had she touched?
How many had she felt?
She walked over and did it again, this time much slower, with her hand facing forward, allowing the dough of her palm to feel the small hurdle of each book. It felt like magic, like beauty, as bright lines of light shone down from a chandelier. Several times, she almost pulled a title from its place but didn't dare disturb them. They were too perfect. "
― Markus Zusak , The Book Thief
4
" So what's your doll's name?" Boo asked me." Barbie," I said. " All their names are Barbie." " I see," she said. " Well, I'd think that would get boring, everyone having the samename." I thought about this, then said, " Okay, then her name is Sabrina." " Well, that's a very nice name," Boo said. I remember she was baking bread,kneading the doughbetween her thick fingers. " What does she do?" " Do?" I said." Yes." She flipped the dough over and started in on it from the other side. " Whatdoes she do?" " She goes out with Ken," I said." And what else?" " She goes to parties," I said slowly. " And shopping." " Oh," Boo said, nodding." She can't work?" " She doesn't have to work," I said." Why not?" " Because she's Barbie." " I hate to tell you, Caitlin, but somebody has to make payments on that town houseand the Corvette," Boo said cheerfully. " Unless Barbie has a lot of family money." I considered this while I put on Ken's pants.Boo started pushing the dough into a pan, smoothing it with her hand over the top." You know what Ithink, Caitlin?" Her voice was soft and nice, the way she always spoke to me." What?" " I think your Barbie can go shopping, and go out with Ken, and also have aproductive and satisfyingcareer of her own." She opened the oven and slid in the bread pan, adjusting itsposition on the rack." But what can she do?" My mother didn't work and spent her time cleaning thehouse and going to PTA.I couldn't imagine Barbie, whose most casual outfit had sequins and go-go boots,doing s.uch things.Boo came over and plopped right down beside me. I always rememberher being on my level; she'd siton the edge of the sandbox, or lie across her bed with me and Cass as we listened tothe radio." Well," she said thoughtfully, picking up Ken and examining his perfect physique." What do you want todo when you grow up?" I remember this moment so well; I can still see Boo sitting there on the floor, cross-legged, holding myKen and watching my face as she tried to make me see that between my mother'sPTA and Boo'sstrange ways there was a middle ground that began here with my Barbie, Sab-rina,and led right to me." Well," I said abruptly, " I want to be in advertising." I have no idea where this camefrom." Advertising," Boo repeated, nodding. " Okay. Advertising it is. So Sabrina has to goto work every day,coming up with ideas for commercialsand things like that." " She works in an office," I went on. " Sometimes she has to work late." " Sure she does," Boo said. " It's hard to get ahead. Even if you're Barbie." " Because she wants to get promoted," I added. " So she can pay off the town house.And the Corvette." " Very responsible of her," Boo said." Can she be divorced?" I asked. " And famous for her commercialsand ideas?" " She can be anything," Boo told me, and this is what I remember most, her freckledface so solemn, as ifshe knew she was the first to tell me. " And so can you. "
6
" Even more remote from his way of thinking, even more impossible than any other thought, would have been words such as this: “Is it only I alone who have created this experience, or is it objective reality? Does the Master have the same feelings as I, or would mine amuse him? Are my thoughts new, unique, my own, or have the Master and many before him experienced and thought exactly the same?” No, for him there were no such analyses and differentiations. Everything was reality, was steeped in reality, full of it as bread dough is of yeast. "
― Hermann Hesse , The Glass Bead Game
7
" Finally, we entered Chetaube County, my imaginary birthplace, where the names of the little winding roads and minuscule mountain communities never failed to inspire me: Yardscrabble, Big Log, Upper, Middle and Lower Pigsty, Chicken Scratch, Cooterville, Felchville, Dust Rag, Dough Bag, Uranus Ridge, Big Bottom, Hooter Holler, Quickskillet, Buck Wallow, Possum Strut ... We always say a picture speaks a thousand words, but isn’t the opposite equally true? "
― Sol Luckman , Beginner's Luke (Beginner's Luke, #1)