#era

…to cause constellations of victories to flash forth at each instant from the zenith of the centuries, to make the French Empire a pendant to the Roman Empire, to be the great nation and to give birth to the grand army, to conquer the world twice, by conquest and by dazzling, that is sublime; and what greater thing is there?’ ‘To be free’, said Combeferre. ↗

— Victor Hugo

#hugo #les-miserables #love

Appalling things can happen to children. And even a happy childhood is filled with sadnesses. Is there any other period in your life when you hate your best friend on Monday and love them again on Tuesday? But at eight, 10, 12, you don't realise you're going to die. There is always the possibility of escape. There is always somewhere else and far away, a fact I had never really appreciated until I read Gitta Sereny's profoundly unsettling Cries Unheard about child-killer Mary Bell. At 20, 25, 30, we begin to realise that the possibilities of escape are getting fewer. We begin to picture a time when there will no longer be somewhere else and far away. We have jobs, children, partners, debts, responsibilities. And if many of these things enrich our lives immeasurably, those shrinking limits are something we all have to come to terms with. This, I think, is the part of us to which literary fiction speaks. ↗

— Mark Haddon

#literary-fiction #reading #love

Conversely, I though humiliation would be everything, but it´s such a nothing. ↗

— Suzanne Finnamore

#divorce #husband #infidelity #marriage #seperation

The whole world seems tilted, my inner ear displaced by a hole where my spouse used to be. ↗

— Suzanne Finnamore

#divorce #husband #infidelity #marriage #seperation

Bushwhacked, I examine my hands. Same hands. Rings still there but no longer valid. ↗

— Suzanne Finnamore

#divorce #infidelity #marriage #seperation #marriage

In reality of everyday occurrences I've had to submit to people in order not to lose them. It's less the submission that bothers me, I guess, than how it makes my life miserable. And what happens if I can't forgive myself for making that choice? And what if, in order to keep on living, I have to continue to accept myself? What am I supposed to do? Conclusion: It'd be best if I'm destroyed. The best thing is for me just to vanish. ↗

— Natsuo Kirino

#regret #submission #suicide #forgiveness

A boomerang returns back to the person who throws it. But first, while moving in a circle, it hits its target. So does gossip. ↗

— Vera Nazarian

#boomerang #cause #circle #effect #gossip

So much for endings. Beginnings are always more fun. True connoisseurs, however, are known to favor the stretch in between, since it's the hardest to do anything with. That's about all that can be said for plots, which anyway are just one thing after another, a what and a what and a what. ↗

— Margaret Atwood

#inspirational #literature #inspirational

Everyone makes mistakes, but only a few could forgive. Padahal ada banyak kesalahan yang hanya perlu dimaafkan, bukan dihukum. An eye for an eye will make us all blind. ↗

— Morra Quatro

#indonesian #literature #novel #forgiveness

One may enter the literary parlor via just about any door, be it the prison door, the madhouse door, or the brothel door. There is but one door one may not enter it through, which is the child room door. The critics will never forgive you such. The great Rudyard Kipling is one of a number of people to have suffered from this. I keep wondering to myself what this peculiar contempt towards anything related to childhood is all about. ↗

— Michael Ende

#childhood #children-s #children-s-books #good-sense #literature