#men

But to us of a later generation...it is inconceivable that millions of Christian men should have killed and tortured each other, because Napoleon was ambitious, Alexander firm, English policy crafty, and the Duke of Oldenburg hardly treated. We cannot grasp the connections between these circumstances and the bare fact of murder and violence, nor why the duke's wrongs should induce thousands of men from the other side of Europe to pillage and murder the inhabitants of the Smolensk and Moscow provinces and to be slaughtered by them. ↗

— Leo Tolstoy

#men

Brrr, who had never admired books particularly...didn't remember that a mere book might reek of sex, possibility, fecundity. Yet a book has a ripe furrow and a yielding spine, he thought, and the nuances to be teased from its pages are nearly infinite in their variety and coquettish appeal. And what new life can emerge from a book. Any book, maybe. ↗

— Gregory Maguire

#men

But there are weak men who can lift cars if their wives are pinned underneath. The brain, Garraty." McVries's voice had dropped to a hoarse whisper. "It isn’t man or God. It’s something...in the brain. ↗

— Stephen King

#mind #strength #men

Men can, of course, be stirred into life by being dressed up in uniforms and made to blare out chants of war. It must be confessed that this is one way for men to break bread with comrades and to find what they are seeking, which is a sense of something universal, of self-fulfillment. But of this bread men die. ↗

— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

#militarism #self-fulfillment #men

As the wine went down in the bottles, patriotism arose in the three men. And when the wine was gone they went down the hill arm in arm for comradeship and safety, and they walked into Monterey. In front of an enlistment station they cheered loudly for America and dared Germany to do her worst. They howled menaces at the German Empire until the enlistment sergeant awakened and put on his uniform and came into the street to silence them. He remained to enlist them. ↗

— John Steinbeck

#men

Truths were carved from the identical wood as were lies--words--and so sank or floated with identical ease. But since truths were carved by the World, they rarely appeased Men and their innumerable vanities. Men hhad no taste for facts that did not ornament or enrich, and so they willfully--if not knowingly--panelled their lives with shining and intricate falsehoods. ↗

— R. Scott Bakker

#men

Temple of the Rat King. Ark of the Soot God. Sphincter of Hades. Yes, King's Cross Station, where, according to Knuckle Sandwich, a blow job costs only five quid - any of the furthest-left three cubicles in the men's lavvy downstairs, twenty-four hours a day. ↗

— David Mitchell

#london #prostitution #trains #men

The flesh of animals who feed excursively is allowed to have a higher flavour than that of those who are cooped up. May there not be the same difference between men who read as their taste prompts and men who are confined in cells and colleges to stated tasks? ↗

— Samuel Butler

#reading #men

Need 'nether whiskey. Whiskey chaser. Gotta get two men drunk.' Mr. Cohan placed both hands on the bar. 'Mr. Walsh,' he said severely, 'in Gavagan's we will serve a man a drink to wet his whistle, or even because his old woman has pasted him with a dornick, but a drink to get drunk with I do not sell. Now I'm telling you you've had enough for tonight, and in the morning you'll be thanking me...' ("My Brother's Keeper") ↗

— Fletcher Pratt

#bar #drinking #drunk #tavern #men

I walk into the office of the counselor and figure out a few things. His name is Bob. It’s written on the plastic sign his door. Bob Kissock. Also, he wears too much cologne. It smells up the tiny room and makes me think of men wearing towels around their waists on TV commercials. ↗

— Janet Gurtler

#men