sofa QUOTES

21 " Do you ever think?
What?
They were lying together on the sofa that had always been there, the crappy beat-up biscuit-colored sofa that was managing, as best it could, its promotion from threadbare junk to holy artifact.
You know.
What if I don't know?
You fucking do.
Okay, yeah. Yes. I, too, wonder if Dad worried so much about every single little goddamned thing . . .
That he summoned it.
Thanks. I couldn't say it.
That some god or goddess heard him, one time too many, getting panicky about whether she'd been carjacked at the mall, or had, like, hair cancer . . .
That they delivered the think even he couldn't imagine worrying about.
It's not true.
I know.
But we're both thinking about it.
That may have been their betrothal. That may have been when they took their vows: We are no longer siblings, we are mates, starship survivors, a two-man crew wandering the crags and crevices of a planet that may not be inhabited by anyone but us. We no longer need, or want, a father.
Still, they really have to call him. It's been way too long. "

― Michael Cunningham , The Snow Queen

23 " Apart from such chaotic classics as these, my own taste in novel reading is one which I am prepared in a rather especial manner, not only to declare, but to defend. My taste is for the sensational novel, the detective story, the story about death, robbery and secret societies; a taste which I share in common with the bulk at least of the male population of this world. There was a time in my own melodramatic boyhood when I became quite fastidious in this respect. I would look at the first chapter of any new novel as a final test of its merits. If there was a murdered man under the sofa in the first chapter, I read the story. If there was no murdered man under the sofa in the first chapter, I dismissed the story as tea-table twaddle, which it often really was. But we all lose a little of that fine edge of austerity and idealism which sharpened our spiritual standard in our youth. I have come to compromise with the tea-table and to be less insistent about the sofa. As long as a corpse or two turns up in the second, the third, nay even the fourth or fifth chapter, I make allowance for human weakness, and I ask no more. But a novel without any death in it is still to me a novel without any life in it. I admit that the very best of the tea-table novels are great art - for instance, Emma or Northanger Abbey. Sheer elemental genius can make a work of art out of anything. Michelangelo might make a statue out of mud, and Jane Austen could make a novel out of tea - that much more contemptible substance. But on the whole I think that a tale about one man killing another man is more likely to have something in it than a tale in which, all the characters are talking trivialities without any of that instant and silent presence of death which is one of the strong spiritual bonds of all mankind. I still prefer the novel in which one person does another person to death to the novel in which all the persons are feebly (and vainly) trying to get the others to come to life. "

― G.K. Chesterton ,

25 " You can't curl up on the sofa and deny life forever. Life is always going to be a series of ouch-making moments, and the question was, was I going to go all fetal-position or was I going to woman up? "

― Maureen Johnson , The Madness Underneath (Shades of London, #2)

27 " What Karen wants to do - needs to do - is cry, but she can't. Here, alone, when she could howl, beat the sofa cushions, scream; now, somehow, she is unable. It's for fear that if she gives in to it, she'll lose all sense of who she is. She is afraid that if she falls apart in private, then she'll fall apart completely. That if she crumbles, like a house in an earthquake, she will disappear down some deep, dark crevasse, and never be able to pull herself out and put herself back together again. "

― Sarah Rayner , One Moment, One Morning

29 " Mate. He’d told Hayden he would stick to his routine. That meant watching the game at her apartment on Sunday and maintaining their friendship. His logical mind fought against his growing urges. Last night, he couldn’t have a simple conversation without touching her. And she didn’t make things any easier. He could smell the desire pouring out of her. It took every ounce of his self-control to hold himself back. At times, it was painful. “I know what I’m doing. I’ve got the situation under control.”
Cam laughed. “Like you did yesterday? Dude, we both know it’s only going to get worse. You’re like a ticking sex bomb.”
Deep down, Kaden knew he was right. Annabelle would become an irresistible, unquenchable thirst. Ordinarily, she would feel the same pull, but there was no way to know how a human would react. “There’s no such thing as a sex bomb.”
Cam spread himself flat across the sofa with his arms crossed behind his head. “Yeah, well, there definitely should be.”
“Be serious.”
He sat up. “I’m trying to tell you, it’s foolish to fight the bond between you. You’d be better off going with it and letting the panties drop where they may.”
And what would happen if he did bond with her? There was no chance it would ever work out between them. He had to hide who he was from the world. A life with him meant Annabelle would have to lie to her friends and family about their relationship. He would never be able to marry her or give her the children she wanted. They’d talked about her dreams for a white picket fence and a family. Even if she were willing to give up those things, wouldn’t he be putting her life in danger? A dull ache formed in the pit of his chest. “You know that’s not possible.”
If he could somehow push away these human emotions of his, maybe he stood a chance of keeping her in his life. Maybe someday he could actually be happy for her if she found a suitable mate. He dug his fingernails into the palms of his hands at the thought of her with a human. “I have to go. She’s waiting for me.”
“Don’t forget the condoms,” Cam shouted out. “Matter of fact, you might want to double up. With all your pent-up frustration, there’s bound to be an explosion.”
“Hilarious,” he replied, shutting the door behind him as he made his way toward his truck. Once inside, he slid his seat belt on and leaned back against the head cushion with his eyes closed. Filled with self-doubt, he worried that he wouldn’t be able to handle it. But he had to.
For the sake of everyone he loved, he had to find a way. "

― Stacey O'Neale , Under His Skin (Alien Encounters, #1)

31 " Sitting in his old schoolroom on the sofa with little cushions on the arms and looking into Natasha's wildly eager eyes, Rostov was carried back into that world of home and childhood which had no meaning for anyone else, but gave him some of the greatest pleasure in his life. "

― Leo Tolstoy , War and Peace

33 " But dying is no easy trick. And suicide can't be put on a list of Things To Do in between cleaning the grill pan and leveling the sofa leg with a brick. It is the decision not to do, to un-do; a kiss blown at oblivion. No matter what anyone says, suicide takes guts. It is for heroes and martyrs, truly vainglorious men. "

― Zadie Smith , White Teeth