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The Book of Man QUOTES

The Book of Man QUOTES

1 " When I swore at my father and he brandished his big belt, he thought he was beating all the contempt and all the defiance out of me. He only beat it farther in. They told me they were going to have me put in a home, but I didn’t know what a home was and I wasn’t afraid. They invented new cruelties, and I invented new worlds their cruelties couldn’t reach. "

― , The Book of Man

2 " Maybe it wasn’t that job particularly; maybe it was just working for someone else. It’s so brutal and tiring, the way it can push you down and knock the heart out of you. It’s not getting up at a certain time and arriving at a certain place at a certain time and leaving at a certain time and coming back again at a certain time — it’s knowing that you have to. What’s worse is that, through age or job-experience or academic qualification or sheer good luck, one adult is in a position to order and insult and abuse and shout at another adult who isn’t in a position to reply in kind. It makes everyone a tin god. Everyone likes having slaves to beat, as they’re beaten themselves. And working on the grind wears you out. After a week of it you’re so tired that you use the weekend just to catch up on your rest before going back to another week of it. "

― , The Book of Man

3 " Possil — and other areas like it, in other cities — has been in that state for so long that it now gives birth to itself. No chance of revolution now — the anger is muted and turned inwards. Possil picks at its own sores. When somebody manages to get a new car, somebody else is bound to torch it. But it doesn’t occur to them to head out to Bearsden or Newton Meams, the places where the nobs live, and torch a few Mercs or Rolls Royces. They don’t do it to the people whose opinion matters. They only do it to each other. And who in Newton Mearns cares if a bunch of schemies on the other side of town burn their own property? And so Possil, and Maryhill, and Easterhouse, and Drumchapel all stay the same. "

― , The Book of Man

4 " Sometimes Mike would fuck her and I’d watch. They didn’t go to bed; they didn’t even take their clothes off. Mike would just stick it into her, stick it in at the crook of her elbow, and tease her till she moaned. Then he’d press the plunger and her whole body would shudder in a junk orgasm. "

― , The Book of Man