Home > Topic > their daily bread
1 " To hear Camrose tell of it, as he often does and in excruciating detail, his early years were tantamount to a parallel Dickensian universe inasmuch as every meal was boiled down to gruel. (Please sir, I don’t want any more.) Whatever vegetables the commune were able to come by through barter, theft or scavenging – though oddly not from a community garden which no one had ever thought to plant – were tossed into a pot with a few heaping scoops of lentils and a handful of curry powder, then boiled down until thick and grayish brown. The resulting semi-solid porridge landed in the bowl with a wet thump reminiscent of raw liver smacking the floor and forced its way to the stomach with an angry lurch. Invalids fed through feeding tubes found more satisfaction in their daily bread than young Camrose. "
― , The Whole Beast
2 " And the looks on the faces of my countrymenpassive heads bent arms at their trousers everyone guilty of not being their best of not earning their daily bread the kind of docility I had never expected from Americans even after so many years of our decline. Here was the tiredness of failure imposed on a country that believed only in its opposite. Here was the end product of our deep moral exhaustion. "
― Gary Shteyngart , Super Sad True Love Story
3 " You are not wrong," Laurence said. He had assumed as much himself, after all, in his Navy days: had thought the Corps full of wild, devil-may-care libertines, disregarding law and authority as far as they dared, barely kept in check-- to be used for their control over the beasts, and not respected." But if we have more liberty than we ought," Laurence said, after a moment, struggling through, " it is because they have not enough: the dragons. They have no stake in victory but our happiness; their daily bread and nation would give them just to have peace and quiet. We are given licence so long as we do what we ought not; so long as we use their affections to keep them obedient and quiet, to ends which serve them not at all-- or which harm." " How else do you make them care?" Granby said. " If we left off, the French would only run right over us, and take our eggs themselves." " They care in China," Laurence said, " and in Africa, and they care all the more, that their rational sense is not imposed on, and their hearts put into opposition with their minds. If they cannot be woken to a natural affection for their country, such as we feel, it is our fault, and not theirs. "
4 " Listen, I am someone who had chosen to earn their daily bread killing other people. I'm inclined to give people a bit of leeway when it comes to their actions and decisions. "
― Jo Nesbø , Blood on Snow (Blood on Snow, #1)
