…as I get older, I find myself insisting on my right to be philosophically sloppy.
We are all small-minded people, creeping about the earth grubbing for our own advantage and making the very mistakes for which we want to humiliate our neighbors.
The human race is all the same when it comes to romantic relations,’ said the Major. ‘A startling absence of impulse control combined with complete myopia.
He cursed himself for having assumed the weather would be sunny. Perhaps it was the result of evolution, he thought–some adaptive gene that allowed the English to go on making blithe outdoor plans in the face of almost certain rain.
He opened his mouth to say that she looked extremely beautiful and deserved armfuls of roses, but the words were lost in committee somewhere, shuffled aside by the parts of his head that worked full-time at avoiding ridicule.
…I tell myself it does not matter what one reads–favorite authors, particular themes–as long as we read something. It is not even important to own the books.
War does have a way of interfering with one’s most closely held desires.
Most of all I remember that what begins with drums and fife, flags and bunting, becomes too swiftly a long and grey winter of the spirit.
My parents told me to marry for money,’ said her husband. ‘But I chose the love of a strong woman.”And look what trouble I turned out to be,’ she said.
They sat a moment in embrace of silent mutual comfort, which was, she often thought, the reward of those long married.
You Anglo-Saxons have largely broken away from such dependence on family. Each generation feels perfectly free to act alone and you are not afraid.
I miss being a student,” said Abdul Wahid. “I miss the passionate discussions with my friends, and most of all the hours among the books.
But it’s not enough to be in love. It’s about how you spend your days, what you do together, who you choose as friends, and most of all it’s what work you do … Better to break both our hearts now than watch them wither away over time.
Memories were like tomb paintings, thought the Major, the colors still vivid no matter how many layers of mud and sand time deposited. Scrape at them and they come up all red and blazing.
Look, the truth belongs to the guy who’s best at sticking to his story,’ said Ferguson.
Only sometimes when we pick and choose among the rules we discover later that we have set aside something precious in the process.