162
" Soon I was weeping---for the reservists who put their entire lives on hold when called to duty, for the military mothers who had to keep their families together all alone, for the parents, spouses, sons, and daughters who were beset with worry, for Mike, and for the soldiers who would never come home. I only meant to buy a shower curtain, and now, quite unexpectedly, right when I least wanted it, months of pent-up loneliness, fear, and frustration were pouring out in an endless churn of hot, silent tears. "
― Lily Burana , I Love a Man in Uniform: A Memoir of Love, War, and Other Battles
165
" I apologize to my priestess. I underestimated her. I equated her with the global media, which is where I found those easily digestible raw materials for my banal and bourgeois account of My Life with Poor Terminal Celestine. There are so many blogs and articles in the 'Living' sections of online newspapers pouring out the synthetic emotions and the mundane details and the shocking bodily consequences of any disease you can think of or even invent. Honestly, Celestine and I felt we had to fully understand the phenomenon of the internet, because consumerism and the internet had fused, they had become one thing, even though on a certain level it was anathema to us, noxious to the strange, introverted, and, yes, relentlessly snob personal culture we had spent years developing together. But also we realized we needed the net in order to understand what was the basic human condition, what a current human being really was, because we had lost touch with that, our students made that clear to us, and so we were also using the internet to research our roles playing normal human beings. "
― David Cronenberg , Consumed
167
" Do me a favor, Ro,” Day said calmly.
“What’s that?” Ronowski peeked around Johnson again.
“Johnson won’t be with you all the time. Remind me to kick your ass later,” Day said.
Ronowski came to stand in front of Day, looked at his watch and smirked. “Sure, what time works for you?”
Day looked at his watch too. “Uhhh, let’s see. How’s five thirty, is that good?”
“I just remembered I’m busy at five thirty.”
“So what time can you be there?”
“I can do five thirty-five.”
“Damn, that’s cutting it close. I might be a little late, but wait on my ass whippin’.”
“Will you dumb asses shut up? Lord help us…they’ve bonded.” The captain tried to suppress his laugh. “God, how the hell do you put up with Day’s mouth?”
“I got something that’ll make him shut him up,” God said in a deep voice.
Everyone groaned and scrunched their faces up in disgust.
“We don’t want to hear that shit, God. Ugh,” the captain said while pouring his cup of coffee.
God looked at Day and saw he wasn’t the slightest bit fazed and if he knew his lover—which he most certainly did—Day would not let him get the last word.
“It’s all a mind game that I play with God. He thinks he’s shutting me up…but when he’s finished with my mouth…I start talking again.” Day winked.
“I’m leaving. I should write your asses up for inappropriate conduct in front of a superior.” The captain hauled ass out of the room.
Johnson and Ronowski were shaking their heads too and telling Day “he sure knew how to clear a room.”
“I got to get back across town,” Johnson said and bent down and whispered something in Ronowski’s ear that made the man turn red.
God tried to pull Day away but he refused to budge. When Johnson said good-bye to them and left out the room, Day mock whispered to Ronowski. “I told you. One good pounding is all you—”
“For fucks sake, Leo,” Ronowski groaned, grabbing his soda hightailing it out of there before Day could finish his sentence. "
― A.E. Via
173
" Do you prefer fermented or distilled?
This is a trick question. It doesn’t matter how much you like wine, because wine is social and writing is anti-social. This is a writer’s interview, writing is a lonely job, and spirits are the lubricant of the lonely. You might say all drinking is supposed to be social but there’s a difference, at one in the morning while you’re hunched over your computer, between opening up a bottle of Chardonnay and pouring two-fingers of bourbon into a tumbler. A gin martini, of course, splits the difference nicely, keeping you from feeling like a deadline reporter with a smoldering cigarette while still reminding you that your job is to be interesting for a living. Anyone who suggests you can make a martini with vodka, by the way, is probably in need of electroconvulsive therapy. "
― Stuart Connelly
174
" Hermione, if Harry’s seen a Grim, that’s — that’s bad,” he said.
“My — my uncle Bilius saw one and — and he died twenty-four hours later!”
“Coincidence,” said Hermione airily, pouring herself some pumpkin juice.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” said Ron, starting to get angry. “Grims scare the living daylights out of most wizards!”
“There you are, then,” said Hermione in a superior tone. “They see the Grim and die of fright. The Grim’s not an omen, it’s the cause of death! And Harry’s still with us because he’s not stupid enough to see one and think, right, well, I’d better kick the bucket then! "
― J.K. Rowling , Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter, #3)
175
" Girl Without Hands
Walking through the ruins
on your way to work
that do not look like ruins
with the sunlight pouring over
the seen world
like hail or melted
silver, that bright
and magnificent, each leaf
and stone quickened and specific in it,
and you can't hold it,
you can't hold any of it. Distance surrounds you,
marked out by the ends of your arms
when they are stretched to their fullest.
You can go no farther than this,
you think, walking forward,
pushing the distance in front of you
like a metal cart on wheels
with its barriers and horizontals.
Appearance melts away from you,
the offices and pyramids
on the horizon shimmer and cease.
No one can enter that circle
you have made, that clean circle
of dead space you have made
and stay inside,
mourning because it is clean.
Then there's the girl, in the white dress,
meaning purity, or the failure
to be any colour. She has no hands, it's true.
The scream that happened to the air
when they were taken off
surrounds her now like an aureole
of hot sand, of no sound.
Everything has bled out of her.
Only a girl like this
can know what's happened to you.
If she were here she would
reach out her arms towards
you now, and touch you
with her absent hands
and you would feel nothing, but you would be
touched all the same. "
― Margaret Atwood , Morning in the Burned House
