Here we go... One of my favorite passages of any book ever...
"The glance of a woman resembles certain wheels which are apparently gentle but are formidable: you daily pass by their side with impunity, and without suspecting anything, and the moment arrives when you even forget that the thing is there. You come, you go, you dream, you speak, you laugh, and all in a minute you feel yourself caught, and it is all over with you. The wheel holds you, the glance has caught you; it has caugtht, no matter where or how, by some part of your thought which dragged after you, or by some inattention on your part. You are lost, and your whole body will be drawn in; a series of mysterious forces seizes you, and you struggle in vain, for human aid is no longer possible. You pass from cog-wheel to cog-wheel, from agony to agony, from torture to torture -- you and your mind, your fortune, your future and your soul; and according to whether you are in the power of a malevolent soul or of a benevolent heart, you will issue from this frightful machinery either disfigured by shame or transfigured by passion."
"The two highest functionaries of the state are the wet nurse and the school teacher."
***
"Before him he saw two roads, both equally straight; but he did see two; and that terrified him--he who had never in his life known anything but one straight line. And, bitter anguish, these two roads were contradictory."
"The two highest functionaries of the state are the wet nurse and the school teacher."
***
"Before him he saw two roads, both equally straight; but he did see two; and that terrified him--he who had never in his life known anything but one straight line. And, bitter anguish, these two roads were contradictory."
As long as there shall exist, as a consequence of laws and customs, a social damnation artificially creating hells in the midst of civilization, and complicating the destiny which is divine with a fatality which is human; as long as the three problems of the age - the degredation of man by the proletariat, the ruin of woman by hunger, the atrophy of the child by the night - are not solved; as long as in cetain regions social asphyxia shall be possible; in other terms, and from a still more extended point of view, as long as there shall be on the earth ignorance and wretchedness, books of the nature of this one cannot be useless.
And just to head it off, it is not Marx or Engels.
"This music did not take a long time or a short time. It did not have anything to do with time going by at all. She sat with her arms held tight around her legs, biting her salty knee very hard. It might have been five minutes she listened or half the night. The second part was black-colored --a slow march. Not sad, but like the whole world was dead and black and there was no use thinking back how it was before. One of those horn kind of instruments played a sad and silver tune. Then the music rose up angry and with excitement underneath. And finally the black march again."
"This music did not take a long time or a short time. It did not have anything to do with time going by at all. She sat with her arms held tight around her legs, biting her salty knee very hard. It might have been five minutes she listened or half the night. The second part was black-colored --a slow march. Not sad, but like the whole world was dead and black and there was no use thinking back how it was before. One of those horn kind of instruments played a sad and silver tune. Then the music rose up angry and with excitement underneath. And finally the black march again."
"She learned a lot about music during these free nights in the summer-time. When she walked out in the rich parts of town every house had a radio. All the windows were open and she could hear the music very marvelous. After a while she knew which houses tuned in for the programs she wanted to hear. There was one special house that got all the good orchestras. And at night she would go to this house and sneak into the dark yard to listen. There was beautiful shrubbery around this house, and she would sit under a bush near the window. And after it was all over she would stand in the dark yard with her hands in her pockets and think for a long time. That was the realest part of all the summer -- her listening to this music on the radio and studying about it."
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Grace Valerie Claire
OK, I'll jump in. What are the best books ever written, other than the Bible? My favorite book for example is An American Tragedy.
GeorgeStGeorge
No, that was actually "Treasure Island," by Robert Louis Stephenson. If you'd like to try, feel free to give a quote from a book, so we can guess the author. I've gotta tell you, though, the pla
WordWolf
Stephen King, The Dark Tower, Volume 1, "The Gunslinger." (For the record, I didn't even find that thing when I moved.)
bfh
Close enough...
The author's name is Jon Krakauer.
Raf correctly identified the first series of quotes from Into Thin Air, about the 1996 Everest disaster.
The second series is from Into the Wild, a book about Chris McCandless,
and the series of events that led to his untimely death in a bus in Alaska.
Krakauer worked closely with Sean Penn, when Penn produced the movie version of Krakauer's book.
Your turn, Raf.
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anotherDan
cool
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Raf
I'll get one in a minute
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Raf
Here we go... One of my favorite passages of any book ever...
"The glance of a woman resembles certain wheels which are apparently gentle but are formidable: you daily pass by their side with impunity, and without suspecting anything, and the moment arrives when you even forget that the thing is there. You come, you go, you dream, you speak, you laugh, and all in a minute you feel yourself caught, and it is all over with you. The wheel holds you, the glance has caught you; it has caugtht, no matter where or how, by some part of your thought which dragged after you, or by some inattention on your part. You are lost, and your whole body will be drawn in; a series of mysterious forces seizes you, and you struggle in vain, for human aid is no longer possible. You pass from cog-wheel to cog-wheel, from agony to agony, from torture to torture -- you and your mind, your fortune, your future and your soul; and according to whether you are in the power of a malevolent soul or of a benevolent heart, you will issue from this frightful machinery either disfigured by shame or transfigured by passion."
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anotherDan
hemmingway?
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Raf
Nope.
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anotherDan
steinbeck?
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Raf
Not an American.
"The two highest functionaries of the state are the wet nurse and the school teacher."
***
"Before him he saw two roads, both equally straight; but he did see two; and that terrified him--he who had never in his life known anything but one straight line. And, bitter anguish, these two roads were contradictory."
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wrdsandwrks
Kafka?
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doojable
I was gonna say Dickens... but I'm not so sure now.
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Raf
Neither Kafka nor Dickens.
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Raf
As long as there shall exist, as a consequence of laws and customs, a social damnation artificially creating hells in the midst of civilization, and complicating the destiny which is divine with a fatality which is human; as long as the three problems of the age - the degredation of man by the proletariat, the ruin of woman by hunger, the atrophy of the child by the night - are not solved; as long as in cetain regions social asphyxia shall be possible; in other terms, and from a still more extended point of view, as long as there shall be on the earth ignorance and wretchedness, books of the nature of this one cannot be useless.
And just to head it off, it is not Marx or Engels.
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WordWolf
George Orwell????
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doojable
Victor Hugo?
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Raf
Dooj gets it.
The quotes are all from Les Miserables, the last from the dedication/prologue.
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doojable
Here's one of my favorite authors:
"This music did not take a long time or a short time. It did not have anything to do with time going by at all. She sat with her arms held tight around her legs, biting her salty knee very hard. It might have been five minutes she listened or half the night. The second part was black-colored --a slow march. Not sad, but like the whole world was dead and black and there was no use thinking back how it was before. One of those horn kind of instruments played a sad and silver tune. Then the music rose up angry and with excitement underneath. And finally the black march again."
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wrdsandwrks
Madeleine L'Engle?
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doojable
Nope. It is a woman.
Another quote:
"She learned a lot about music during these free nights in the summer-time. When she walked out in the rich parts of town every house had a radio. All the windows were open and she could hear the music very marvelous. After a while she knew which houses tuned in for the programs she wanted to hear. There was one special house that got all the good orchestras. And at night she would go to this house and sneak into the dark yard to listen. There was beautiful shrubbery around this house, and she would sit under a bush near the window. And after it was all over she would stand in the dark yard with her hands in her pockets and think for a long time. That was the realest part of all the summer -- her listening to this music on the radio and studying about it."
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bfh
Carson McCullers -The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Mick and her love of music...
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doojable
You're right, bfh.
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bfh
I saw a cadaverous face appear at a small window on the ground-floor...
and quickly disappear...It belonged to a red-haired person-a youth of fifteen,
as I take it now, but looking much older-whose hair was cropped as close as the closest stubble;
who had hardly any eyebrows, and no eyelashes, and eyes of a red-brown;
so unsheltered and unshaded, that I remember wondering how he went to sleep.
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doojable
Dostoyevsky?
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Raf
Dassa Dickens
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anotherDan
methinks you may be right!
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