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State of War QUOTES

State of War QUOTES

1 " He saw clearly, immediately, that the man didn't care about the gift's value, didn't care about the gift even, but cared profoundly for the act of receiving as though the gift were a tribute, a confirmation of his self, his being, his reality. He found no pleasure in what he was taking but in the act of taking itself. "

― Ninotchka Rosca , State of War

2 " A man could love only what he respected, not pitied. "

― Ninotchka Rosca , State of War

3 " His knees had turned to water and he had had to sit down on the soft edge, his hands automatically taking her hot, dry hands while his mind, for some strange reason, instantly dredged up from his storehouse of memories his grandfather's tale of Magellan crossing a nameless sea in a still young world. He had seen, as he had looked into her eyes, the sea; depths beyond depths, and the tiny ships and white sails of grace moving along the rim of time. Almost without knowing it, without being aware that he was doing so, he kissed her fingertips one by one, as he told himself that this was what it meant, that to love was to regain the capacity to remember a world without names, to recall by virtue the whorl above the beloved's knucklebones and the blue of the veins beneath the skin the unbearable fragility of mornings in this country, to find October odors trapped in the skinfolds between her toes along with the scent of talcum powder and soap and human sweat. He moved then, without willing it, helplessly, and sank himself into the swamp of her delirium, as her fever broke and her bones melted in a cold sweat that drenched him and the bedsheets, soaking his chest, his legs, his armpits so that he thought he was making love to the monsoon and was himself dissolving into a needle spray of rain and the pungence of washed leaves and cleaned tree bark in a festival to end the dry season. "

― Ninotchka Rosca , State of War

4 " To love was to regain the capacity to remember a world without names, to recall by virtue of the whorl above the beloved's knucklebones and to blue of the veins beneath the skin the unbearable fragility of mornings in this counrty, to find October odors trapped in the skinfolds between her toes along with the scent of talcum powder and soap and human sweat. "

― Ninotchka Rosca , State of War

5 " It was a kind of sin, certainly, to forget—but it was not easy to remember, especially when names changed, languages changed. A century-old name held that century; when replaced, a hundred years were wiped out at one stroke. Amnesia set it; reality itself, being metamorphic, was affected. "

― Ninotchka Rosca , State of War

6 " That to own things did not necessarily mean one belonged; that possession was no guarantee of control "

― Ninotchka Rosca , State of War

7 " Do not tempt fate by saying never. Never again this, never again that—for you can never be sure of never and that's the only thing you can be sure of. "

― Ninotchka Rosca , State of War

8 " Better to exist without destiny, only to exist. "

― Ninotchka Rosca , State of War

9 " He was convinced that poverty was the only way of life for a certain category of people; they would die without it. "

― Ninotchka Rosca , State of War

10 " It is the living nature of resistance. It exists in a constant flux, changing, breeding, metastasizing. All information about it's internal processes is rendered obsolete by revelation. "

― Ninotchka Rosca , State of War