"You will get me out of your thoughts in a week."
"Out of my thoughts! You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read, since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been in every prospect I have ever seen since---on the river, on the sails of the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with. The stones of which the strongest London buildings are made are not more real, or more impossible to be displaced by your hands, than your presence and influence have been to me, there and everywhere, and will be. Estella, to the last hour of my life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good in me, part of the evil. But, in this separation I associate you only with the good, and I will faithfully hold you to that always, for you must have done me far more good than harm, let me feel now what sharp distress I may. Oh God bless you, God forgive you!"
In what ecstasy of unhappiness I got these broken words out of myself, I don't know.
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.
She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.
Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, a certain initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns.
Lolita by Vladmir Nabokov
Animals commune around water. I drove past a lake once. Closeness to water grants privilege of tongue and opinion. On this lake were swans- magnificent moonlit creatures which were basking in the purest of night- the water beneath them full of hungry turtles, the water itself full of fertilizer. The woman driving saw the swans with me, and we talked about them. "They are making love," she said. "They are killing one another," I told her. We drove into the guard rail, penetrated the blackness beyond, and flipped into a wet pile of birds. And a lake.
HATRED SURGE "Servant" b/w "Bestial" 7" Single Description by Roderick McClain
When I was seven I first bought this book solely for the title. I'd sit in my room and hold it and stare at the cover for hours repeating the title over and over again in my head. I've never read the book.
ReplyDeleteI did the same thing with Anne Frank's diary. Eventually, though, I did go through and read her entries written on my birthday.
It's a heavy title. I had to read it for summer reading for an honors English class. It was long and boring at times so I listened to it on CD while following along in the book. It was much better that way. I have the tapes at my mom's house if you ever feel like borrowing them. I have so many pages dog-eared in that book.
ReplyDeleteI definitely would've done something like that with Anne Frank's diary or anything with dates for that matter.