Wander on.

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Boys like young George Willard and Seth Richmond will remember the incident quite vividly because, although everyone in our town said that the old man would go straight to hell and that the community was better off without him, they had a secret conviction that he knew what he was doing and admired his foolish courage. Most boys have seasons of wishing they could die gloriously instead of just being grocery clerks and going on with their humdrum lives.

Winesburg, Ohio- Sherwood Anderson

3 months ago -

1

You will never feel satisfied chasing dreams that aren’t your own.

Mother’s body was still upstairs waiting for the coroner, and I could feel her there, still pressing on me. She’d always seemed to take pleasure in the quietness of my life, as if I’d become what she thought I would, which was not much of anything at all. This tugging was very old and powerful, and I knew I could easily give in to it, in to nothingness. Or I could push with everything I had the other way.

The Paris Wife

4 months ago -

2

So when the system just upped one summer and decided to close Kroll’s down, just because shoppers had stopped coming in because the downtown had become frightening to white people, Rabbit realized the world was not solid and benign, it was a shabby set of temporary arrangements rigged up for the time being, all for the sake of the money. You just passed through, and they milked you for what you were worth, mostly when you were young and gullible. If Kroll’s could go, the courthouse could go, the banks could go. When the money stopped, they could close down God Himself.

Rabbit at Rest- John Updike

4 months ago

The only imaginative fiction being written today is income tax returns.

Herman Woulk

4 months ago -

2

About being mortal—I suppose it affects different people different ways, but for me there’s never been a thinning out. Being alive, no matter how sick I feel, is an absolute right to the end. You’re absolutely alive and when you’re not you’ll be absolutely something else.

Rabbit at Rest- Updike

4 months ago -

5

50 best literary insults

http://www.shortlist.com/entertainment/50-best-literary-insults

If we wait until we’re ready, we’ll be waiting for the rest of our lives.

Lemony Snicket (via hellanne)

5 months ago -

31494

“I don’t know about Sanders,” Bernie says, “but a lot of it’s drugs. Cocaine. The stuff is everywhere.”

“You wonder what people see in it,” Rabbit says.

“What they see in it,” Bernie says, stopping the cart and resting his cigar on the edge of the plastic ledge for holding drinks or beer cans, “is instant happiness.” He squares up to his second shot with that awful stance of his, his feet too close together, his bald head dipping down in a reverse weight-shift, and punches the ball with a four-iron: all arms and wrists. It stays straight, though, and winds up within an easy chip in front of the elevated green. “There are two routes to happiness,” he continues, back at the wheel of the cart. “Work for it, day after day, like you and I did, or take a chemical shortcut. The long way looks too long.”

“Yeah, well, it is long. And then when you’ve gone the distance, where’s the happiness?”

“Behind you,” the other admits.

Rabbit at Rest-John Updike

5 months ago -

6

Half way through a different book and I just couldn’t take it anymore. This one compliments my face better.

Half way through a different book and I just couldn’t take it anymore. This one compliments my face better.