#so

Everything I said he agreed with, which was trying, and his flute playing would make the deaf wince, but I think the real problem with Hyacinth was that he reminded me of myself. He read poetry. He flinched at loud noises. In addition to having no musical skills, he had no martial skills. He avoided any situation that might require physical effort on his part. Seeing him, I found it no wonder that my father despised me. ↗

— Megan Whalen Turner

#self-reflection #sophos #music

In the world of The Age of Innocence, a financial disaster or moral scandal would permanently exile a guest from the finest dinner tables. In contemporary New York, a mere change of fashion can eliminate a place setting; therefore, the need to maintain a rigidity not of morals, but of taste, seems all the more desperate. ↗

— Wendy Wasserstein

#society #victorian #age

They send a person who can never stay," she whispered. "Who can never accept my offer of companionship for more than a little while. They send me a hero I can't help ... just the sort of person I can't help falling in love with." ... As I sailed into the lake I realized the Fates really were cruel. They sent Calypso someone she couldn't help but love. But it worked both ways. For the rest of my life I would be thinking about her. She would always be my biggest what if. ↗

— Rick Riordan

#cruel #fates #love #percy-jackson #punishment

What the hell is this stuff?" he muttered, frowning at the oily spot on the linen cloth. "Pearlman slathered it on me this morning." "It's macassar oil. Gentlemen use it to keep their hair neat. Nicholas used it," she added pointedly. "Well, tomorrow he's giving it up. I smell like a rotten apple." "You do not. And I think it looks rather nice." He sent her an incredulous look. "I look like an otter. And everything I put my head against gets greasy." "That's why someone invented the antimacassar," she told him, almost smiling. "The-aha!" He laughed as he made the connection. "Of course. First they invent something stupid, then something ugly to make up for it. We live in a wondrous age, Annie. ↗

— Patricia Gaffney

#social-commentary #victorian-era #age

One might have said that reason made him flee from reason. ↗

— André Maurois

#knowledge #reason #age

Fear's useless. Either something bad happens or it doesn't: If it doesn't, you've wasted time being afraid, and if it does, you've wasted time that you could have spent sharpening your weapons. ↗

— Sarah Rees Brennan

#life-lessons #life

When I was twenty-something, I asked my father, “When did you start feeling like a grownup?” His response: “Never. ↗

— Shannon Celebi

#father #fathers #fathers-and-daughters #growing-up #life

She understood that Simon was a disappointed man if he needed, at ths age, to tell her he had pitied her for years. ↗

— Elizabeth Strout

#age

The monkish vows keep us far from that sink of vice that is the female body, but often they bring us close to other errors. Can I finally hide from myself the fact that even today my old age is still stirred by the noonday demon when my eyes, in choir, happen to linger on the beardless face of a novice, pure and fresh as a maiden's? ↗

— Umberto Eco

#hypocrisy #lust #misogyny #monks #pedophilia

Someday, it will be hard to remember why we were once so fired up about 3G connectivity and the wonders of mobile broadband. Seamless, lightning-fast connectedness will be a given everywhere on Earth, and today's gadgets will be quaint museum pieces. At that point, all we'll care about is what kind of life these devices have created for us. And if it isn't a good life, we'll wonder what we did wrong. ↗

— William Powers

#philosophy #technology #age