Home > Topic > livingroom
1 " Regret nothing. Not the cruel novels you read to the end just to find out who killed the cook. Not the insipid movies that made you cry in the dark, in spite of your intelligence, your sophistication. Not the lover you left quivering in a hotel parking lot, the one you beat to the punchline, the door, or the one who left you in your red dress and shoes, the ones that crimped your toes, don’t regret those. Not the nights you called god names and cursed your mother, sunk like a dog in the livingroom couch,b chewing your nails and crushed by loneliness. You were meant to inhale those smoky nights over a bottle of flat beer, to sweep stuck onion rings across the dirty restaurant floor, to wear the frayed coat with its loose buttons, its pockets full of struck matches. You’ve walked those streets a thousand times and still you end up here. Regret none of it, not one of the wasted days you wanted to know nothing, when the lights from the carnival rides were the only stars you believed in, loving them for their uselessness, not wanting to be saved. You’ve traveled this far on the back of every mistake, ridden in dark-eyed and morose but calm as a house after the TV set has been pitched out the upstairs window. Harmless as a broken ax. Emptied of expectation. Relax. Don’t bother remembering any of it. Let’s stop here, under the lit sign on the corner, and watch all the people walk by. "
― Dorianne Laux , The Book of Men
2 " I..." He struggled to answer. " When everything was quiet, I went up to the corridor and the curtain in the livingroom was open just a crack... I could see outside. I watched, only for a few seconds." He had not seen the outside world for twenty-two months.There was no anger or reproach.It was Papa who spoke.How did it look?" Max lifted his head, with great sorrow and great astonishment. " There were stars," he said. " They burned by eyes. "
3 " Harry moved toward the fire, butjust as he reached the edge of the hearth, Mr. Weasley put out ahand and held him back. He was looking at the Dursleys in amazement.“Harry said good-bye to you,” he said. “Didn’t you hear him?”“It doesn’t matter,” Harry muttered to Mr. Weasley. “Honestly, Idon’t care.”Mr. Weasley did not remove his hand from Harry’s shoulder.“You aren’t going to see your nephew till next summer,” he saidto Uncle Vernon in mild indignation. “Surely you’re going to saygood-bye?”Uncle Vernon’s face worked furiously. The idea of being taughtconsideration by a man who had just blasted away half his livingroom wall seemed to be causing him intense suffering. But Mr.Weasley’s wand was still in his hand, and Uncle Vernon’s tiny eyesdarted to it once, before he said, very resentfully, “Good-bye, then. "
― J.K. Rowling