64
" Не, отсече Фъргюсън, когато родителите на Арчи го попитаха дали споделя възгледите на това момче, но разговорите помежду им били много полезни, така каза, защото всеки път, когато Майк го предизвиквал, той трябвало сериозно да помисли в какво вярва самият той, а как изобщо можеш да научиш нещо, ако разговаряш единствено с хора, които мислят като теб? "
― Paul Auster , 4 3 2 1
65
" So pretty she was, Ferguson’s mother, so fetching with her gray-green eyes and long brown hair, so spontaneous and alert and quick to smile, so deliciously put together throughout the five feet six inches that had been allotted to her person that Stanley, on shaking her hand for the first time, the remote and normally disengaged Stanley, the twenty-nine-year-old Stanley who had never once been burned by the fires of love, felt himself disintegrating in Rose’s presence, as if all the air had been vacuumed from his lungs and he would never be able to breathe again. "
― Paul Auster , 4 3 2 1
68
" …и докато повечето горни курсове все още вярваха в уроците, научени през петдесетте години, Фъргюсън и неговите приятели вече разбираха, че живеят в един нерационален свят, в страна, която убива президентите си, прокарва закони в ущърб на собствените си граждани и изпраща своите младежи да умират в безсмислени войни, което означаваше, че са повече в крак с реалностите на настоящето, отколкото техните „батковци“. "
― Paul Auster , 4 3 2 1
69
" Zo mooi was ze, Fergusons moeder, zo aantrekkelijk met haar grijsgroene ogen en haar lange bruine haar, zo spontaan, zo levendig en goedlachs, zo fraai gevormd met de een meter achtenzestig die haar was toebedeeld, dat Stanley, bij de eerste handdruk die hij met haar wisselde, de afstandelijke en gewoonlijk vrijgevochten Stanley, de negenentwintigjarige Stanley die nog nooit door het liefdesvuur was verteerd, zichzelf ten overstaan van Rose voelde verschrompelen, alsof alle lucht uit zijn longen was gezogen en hij nooit meer zou kunnen ademen. "
― Paul Auster , 4 3 2 1
71
" belligerent, bellowing partisans, the astute man with the curly blond hair and the jocular, no-discipline approach to running a team was shouting at his charges and reminding them how to break a full-court press, and before the boys put their right hands on top of Lenny’s right hand for a last Let’s go!, the thirty-four-year-old husband and father of two pointed to an exit door in the side wall of the gym and told the boys that no matter what happened in the next ten seconds, whether they won the game or lost the game, at the instant the final buzzer sounded they should all run for that door and jump into his station wagon parked at the curb because, as he put it, things are getting a little nuts in here, and he didn’t want anyone to be injured or killed in the mayhem that was sure to follow. Then the five hands and the one hand came together, Lenny barked the last Let’s go!, and Ferguson and the other starters trotted back onto the court. They "
― Paul Auster , 4 3 2 1
73
" Pangloss is an idiot optimist, and I’m an intelligent pessimist, meaning a pessimist who has occasional flashes of optimism. Nearly every thing happens for the worst, but not always, you see, nothing is ever always, but I’m always expecting the worst, and when the worst doesn’t happen, I get so excited I begin to sound like an optimist. I could have lost you, Archie, and then I didn’t. That’s all I can think about anymore— how happy I am that I didn’t. "
― Paul Auster , 4 3 2 1
75
" That was the real difference, Ferguson concluded. Not too little money or too much money, not what a person did or failed to do, not buying a larger house or a more expensive car, but ambition. That explained why Brownstein and Solomon managed to float through their lives in relative peace—because they weren’t tormented by the curse of ambition. By contrast, his father and Uncle Don were consumed by their ambitions, which paradoxically made their worlds smaller and less comfortable than those who weren’t afflicted by the curse, for ambition meant never being satisfied, to be always hungering for something more, constantly pushing forward because no success could ever be big enough to quell the need for new and even bigger successes, the compulsion to turn one store into two stores, then two stores into three stores, to be talking now about building a fourth store and even a fifth store, just as one book was merely a step on the way to another book, a lifetime of more and more books, which required the same concentration and singleness of purpose that a businessman needed in order to become rich. Alexander the Great conquers the world, and then what? He builds a rocket ship and invades Mars. "
― Paul Auster , 4 3 2 1