#or

I was the ref. I was the ref they didn’t know about. Deaf and dumb. Invisible as a wall. I wanted no one to win ↗

— Roddy Doyle

#divorce-separation-children #age

It was now autumn, and I made up my mind to make, before winter set in, an excursion across Normandy, a country with which I was not acquainted. It must be borne in mind that I began with Rouen, and for a week I wandered about enthusiastic with admiration, in that picturesque town of the Middle Ages, in that veritable museum of extraordinary Gothic monuments. Well, one afternoon, somewhere about four o'clock, as I happened to be passing down an out-of-the-way by-street, in the middle of which flowed a deep river, black as ink, named the Eau de Robec, my attention wholly directed to examining the bizarre and antique physiognomy of the houses, was all of a sudden attracted by the sight of a series of shops of furniture brokers, one after the other, from door to door along the street. Ah! these second-hand brokers had well chosen their locality, these sordid old traffickers of bric-a-brac, in this fantastic alley leading up from stream of that sinister dark water, under the steep pointed overhanging gables of tiled roofs and projecting shingle eaves, where the weathercocks of the past still creaked overhead. ("Who Knows?") ↗

— Guy de Maupassant

#normandy #rouen #age

All historical writing, even the most honest, is unconsciously subjective, since every age is bound, in spite of itself, to make the dead perform whatever tricks it finds necessary for its own peace of mind. ↗

— Carl L. Becker

#historians #history #age

I am certain you are not one of those dreary fellows one reads of who demands that their lady friends be in possession of a maidenhead. Mine was taken by a marrow two years ago.” “A marrow, Miss Pertwee? The vegetable that the Italians call il zucchine?” “The very same.A most particularly bold and impetuous hot-house marrow. It was quite the ravishment, I can assure you.” “I consider it no dishonor at all to be preceded by so noble a vegetable. ↗

— Vinnie Tesla

#vegetables #virginity #age

I want to write a poem about "Truth," "Honor," "Dignity," and whether the toilet paper should roll over or under when you pull on it. ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#honor #life #poem #toilet-paper #truth

...early medieval Ireland sounds like a somewhat crazed Wisconsin, in which every dairy farm is an armed camp at perpetual war with its neighbors, and every farmer claims he is a king. ↗

— David Willis McCullough

#ireland #age

Does no one want to know the truth here, Mr. Archer? The real loneliness is living among all these kind of people who only ask one to pretend! ↗

— Edith Wharton

#hypocrisy #new-york #pulitzer-prize #social-criticism #age

The oppressed grows weightless: doze/n th/rough c/and/or man/aged leg/ions stud/ents ↗

— A.R. Ammons

#age

Memory is a sly devil that pretends to wear the cloak of truth, but deceives us both in our youth and our age. ↗

— Harley King

#memory #truth #age

I lived through all these times, these great events, without caring very much, concerned with my own aging rather than the world's. Most of us do likewise. History is the heavy traffic that prevents us from crossing the road. We're not especially interested in what it consists of. We wait, more or less patiently, for it to pause, so that we can get to the liquor store or the laundromat or the burger bar ↗

— Mal Peet

#life #age