“Often he talked to Mr. Singer. With him he spoke of chemistry and the enigma of the universe. Of the infinitesimal sperm and the cleavage of the ripened egg. Of the complex million-fold division of cells. Of the mystery of living matter and the simplicity of death. And also he spoke with him of race.”
“The white deer flashed through the green forest and the King and his sons followed, past the barking tree, across the musical mud, in and out of a flock of wingless birds. On and on went the chase until the sun began to set and long strange shadows fell.”
“‘Why don’t you take a large bite of that sandwich?’ Jake said.”
“For any act done consciously may be defiant, may be independent, may change life utterly.
But one can only act thus if one knows there is no safety… One must wait outside. There is no hiding away from storm, waste, injustice, death. There is no stopping, only a pretense, a mean, stupid pretense of being safe and letting time and evil pass by outside. But we are all outside, Piera thought, and all defenseless. There is no safe house but death.”
– from Malafrena, by Ursula K. Le Guin
“…I had made the whole journey mainly to show her what she had lost and what I had won. But she had known from the moment I appeared, and now, risking tensions with her workmates, and fines, she was explaining to me that I had won nothing, that in the world there is nothing to win, that her life was full of varied and foolish adventures as much as mine, and that time simply slipped away without any meaning, and it was good just to see each other every so often to hear the mad sound of the brain of one echo in the mad sound of the brain of the other.”
– The Story of a New Name, by Elena Ferrante
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