literature

"When the seas of life get rough, some readers look for escape, while others dive right in. So it is , when many book lovers are turning toward ."

"Real life is overrated. But as readers we can escape to any elsewhere our heart desires – and at present all my heart wants is hope and kindness and liberty and pure escapism."

"Though fairy-stories are of course by no means the only medium of Escape, they are today one of the most obvious and (to some) outrageous forms of 'escapist literature' ..."

"People who read tend to commit fewer s, I guess. I think that one of the reasons for that isn’t just that they’re brighter, but I think books give you a place to go. They give you a time-out. They give you a different headspace to be in, rather than getting more and more frustrated or angry or upset or whatever it is that leads people to these outbursts. So I think that books provide a social service that way, for their readers, that isn’t recognized in your basic literature course. Escapist literature gets a bad rap, but I think escape is pretty important for a lot of people in a lot of places."

"Such forgeries were common enough... So unenviable was the reputation that priests had acquired in this matter that Isaac Newton spent 50 years of his life trying to undo the forgeries that he thought various priests had incorporated into the Bible, to serve their temporal ends. And the only answer to his scholarly and voluminous accusations was to hide them for some 250 years—in fact they still remain secret."

"The very best proof of how much writing mattered was the forgeries. Forgery had been an ecclesiastical habit for centuries. ... faking had become a monastic speciality. The monks persisted. They were the archivists, the keepers of records, and they were quite prepared to improve on history to keep the record straight. The more respect for the written word, the more fakes."

"The present generation has this ingrained weakness, that it thinks that nothing discovered by the moderns is worthy to be received—the result of this is that if I wanted to publish anything of my own invention I should attribute it to someone else, and say, “Someone else said this, not I.” Therefore (that I may not wholly be robbed of a hearing) it was a certain great man that discovered all my ideas, not I."

"For the majority of readers, Latin American fantastic literature operates under the tutelage of the great masters: Jorge Luis Borges, Adolfo Bioy Casares, Julio Cortázar and Gabriel García Márquez. However, although few are acquainted with their works, many women began experimenting with this genre well before their male counterparts and were the true precursors of the form, though their names remained on the shelves of oblivion, without the recognition that they deserved. María Luisa Bombal, for example, wrote the fantastic nouvelle, House of Mist (1937) before the famous Ficciones (1944) of Borges, and the Mexican, Elena Garro, wrote Remembrance of Things to Come (1962) before the publication of García Márquez' One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967)."

"From around 1600 to 1750, the Baroque period witnessed the creation of some of the greatest musical masterpieces ever composed."

"[Nastya's mother] Sablina stood up, walked over to the serving dish, stuck the two-pronged fork into Nastya's left breast, and began to cut into her flesh. Everyone listened carefully. Under a brown, crispy crust flashed white meat and a yellow strip of fat. Her juice flowed freely. Sablina put a slice of breast onto a plate and handed it to her husband. "Please, everyone! Don't be shy!""

"He lies down in the hammock and tries to sleep. A commercial plays again and again in his mind. A woman who's beautiful but dressed conservatively is putting dinner on the table for her three children and husband. She looks at the camera and says: "I serve my family special food, it's the same meat as always, but tastier." The whole family smiles and eats their dinner. The government, his government, decided to resignify the product. They gave human meat the name "special meat". Instead of just "meat", now there's "special tenderloin", "special cutlets", "special kidneys". He doesn't call it special meat. He uses technical words to refer to what is a human but will never be a person, to what is always a product. To the number of heads to be processed, to the lot waiting in the unloading yard, to the slaughter line that must run in a constant and orderly manner, to the excrement that needs to be sold for manure, to the offal sector. No one can call them humans because that would mean giving them an identity. They call them product, or meat, or food."

"Over the years, the shop transformed, gradually but persistently. First it was the packaged hands that Spanel placed off to the side where they were hidden among the milanesas à la provençale, the cuts of tri-tip and the kidneys. The label read "Special Meat", but on another part of the package, Spanel clarified that it was "Upper Extremity", strategically avoiding the word hand. Then she added packaged feet, which were displayed on a bed of lettuce with the label "Lower Extremity", and later on, a platter with tongues, penises, noses, testicles and a sign that said "Spanel's Delicacies". Before long, people began to ask for front or hind trotters, using the cuts of pork to refer to upper and lower extremities. The industry took this as permission and started to label products with these euphemisms that nullified all horror."

"Nastya was brought to the table toward seven o'clock.... Golden-brown, she was presented on an oval serving dish, clutching at her legs with now blackened fingernails. White rose buds were scattered around her, slices of lemon covered her chest, knees, and shoulders. White river lilies bloomed innocently on her breasts, pubis, and forehead. "That's my daughter!" Sablin stood up, glass in hand. "Tonight's special, ladies and gentlemen!" Everyone applauded."

"But if you're gonna dine with them cannibals Sooner or later, darling, you're gonna get eaten."

"My mother-in-law said, The meat boy's blood will be completely drained in about an hour and a half. The second step is to remove the innards while keeping them intact. The third step is to loosen the hair with water heated to 70 degrees... I really don't feel like describing my mother-in-law’s actual cooking lesson, which was boring and nauseating at the same time."

"The boy lay with his head in the man's lap. After a while he said: They're going to kill those people, arent they? Yes. Why do they have to do that? I dont know. Are they going to eat them? I dont know. They're going to eat them, arent they? Yes. And we couldnt help them because then they'd eat us too. Yes. And that's why we couldnt help them. Yes. Okay."

"A census taker tried to quantify me once. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a big Amarone."

"Mother and father of appetites, I am Sagawa, who'll kiss you, for starters."

"... Now, in my opinion, you can't find a nicer piece of meat, marbled but firm, than a buck [boy] tempered [castrated] not older than six, then hung at twice that age." "No one asked your opinion", Memtok answered. "Their Charity's opinion is the only one that counts. They think that sluts [young women] are more tender."

"Five minutes later, two young women in snowy white hospital gowns and square caps carried a naked meat boy into the lecture hall in a specially designed gurney. The women ... set the gurney on the chopping block, then stepped aside, their arms hanging down stiffly. My mother-in-law bent over to inspect the pink meat boy, poked him in the chest with a soft, dainty index finger, and nodded with satisfaction."

""Don't dare overcook my daughter!" "I know what I'm doing .... She'll be done in three hours," Savely wiped the sweat from his brow."

"Once she came home troubled: "Bold, they say that northerners here go to restaurants that serve human flesh. 'Two-legged mutton', have you heard that? Different names for old men, women, young girls, children? Are they really such monsters up there?" "I don't think so," Bold said. "I never met any." She was not entirely reassured. She often saw hungry ghosts in her sleep, and they had to come from somewhere. And they sometimes complained to her of having had their bodies eaten. It made sense to her that they might cluster around restaurants in search of some kind of retribution. Bold nodded; it made sense to him too, though it was hard to believe the teeming city harbored practicing cannibals when there was so much other food to be had."

"The smell of barbecue is in the air. They go to the rest area, where the farmhands are roasting a rack of meat on a cross. El Gringo explains to Egmont that they've been preparing it since eight in the morning, "So it melts in your mouth", and that the guys are actually about to eat a kid. "It's the most tender kind of meat, there's only just a little, because a kid doesn't weigh as much as a calf. We're celebrating because one of them became a father", he explains. "Want a sandwich?""

"The Ghoul: (while starting to dismember a man he has just killed) Well, Lucy MacLean, it ain't all canned peaches and marmalade left up here, sweetheart. Sometimes a fella's got to eat a fella. Lucy: You know, my vault has endured hardship, too. In the Great Plague of '77, everyone had to quarantine, they couldn't work the farms together. People starved. My mother included. My dad dropped to 128 pounds, and he still refused to do anything like this. (The Ghoul laughs) What? What's so funny? The Ghoul: Well, there's what people say they did and what they really did. I'll bet your daddy was first in line at the cookout. I bet he had a bib with a drawing of his neighbor's ass on there. Lucy: How do you live like this?! Why keep going?! The Ghoul: Well, one good question deserves another. Why the fuck am I doing all the work? Now come on, vaultie. Ass jerky don't make itself."

"A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti. [Slurps]"

"Soylent Green is people!"

"Hugh tried to keep his eyes [off] the contents of the meat storage room. Most of the meat was beef and fowl. But one long row of hooks down the center held what he knew he would find – human carcasses, gutted and cleaned and frozen, hanging head down, save that the heads were missing. Young sluts and bucks, he could see, but whether the bucks were tempered or not was no longer evident.... Memtok paused on the way out and patted the loin of a stripling buck carcass. "That's what I would call a nice piece of meat. Eh, Hugh?""

"We're gonna be french fries! Human french fries!"

""Let Comrade Ding eat something before he takes a rest." "There's still one more important dish!" "Oh", Diamond Jin said thoughtfully. "Then bring it in." A red serving girl removed the cactus plant in the middle of the table. Then two red serving girls entered carrying a large round gilded platter in which sat a golden, incredibly fragrant little boy."

"They'd taken everything with them except whatever black thing was skewered over the coals. He was standing there checking the perimeter when the boy turned and buried his face against him. He looked quickly to see what had happened. What is it? he said. What is it? The boy shook his head. Oh Papa, he said. He turned and looked again. What the boy had seen was a charred human infant headless and gutted and blackening on the spit. He bent and picked the boy up and started for the road with him, holding him close. I'm sorry, he whispered. I'm sorry."

", n. A gastronome of the old school who preserves the simple tastes and adheres to the natural diet of the pre-pork period. The practice of cannibalism was once universal, as the smallest knowledge of philology will serve to show. "Oblige us", says the erudite author of the Delectatio Demonorum, "by considering the derivation of the word 'sarcophagus', and see if it be not suggestive of potted meats. Observe the significance of the phrase 'sweet sixteen'. What a world of meaning lurks in the expression 'she's as sweet as a peach', and how suggestive of luncheon are the words 'tender youth!' A kiss is but a modified bite, and a fond mother, when she rapturously avers that her babe is 'almost good enough to eat', merely shows that she is herself only a trifle too good to eat it.""

"Among the anthropophagi One's friends are one's sarcophagi."

"I despised him long before I found out about his having young girls butchered and served for his dinner.... Ponse always ate girls. About one a day for his family table, I gathered. Girls about the age and plumpness of [14-year-old] Kitten." "But— But— Hugh, I ate the same thing he did, lots of times. I must have— I must have—" "Sure you did. So did I. But not after I knew. Nor did you." "Honey... you better stop the car. I'm going to be sick."

"The ocean's dying. Plankton's dying. It's people. Soylent Green is made out of people. They're making our food out of people. Next thing, they'll be breeding us like cattle for food. You've gotta tell them. You've gotta tell them!"

"When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains And the women come out to cut up what remains Just roll to your rifle and blow out your brains An' go to your Gawd like a soldier."

"In ancient times, as I recollect, people often ate human beings, but I am rather hazy about it. I tried to look this up, but my history has no chronology, and scrawled all over each page are the words: "Virtue and Morality". Since I could not sleep anyway, I read intently half the night, until I began to see words between the lines, the whole book being filled with the two words – "Eat people"."

"Tublat, whom he had hated and who had hated him, he had killed in a fair fight, and yet never had the thought of eating Tublat's flesh entered his head. It would have been as revolting to him as is cannibalism to us."

"The harvest had yielded no grain. Gradually, even tree bark and plant stalks had grown scarce. Soon, markets selling human flesh had begun to appear... The two men were tearing off the little girl's clothes... The girl looked like she was somewhere around ten years of age... It soon became evident that most of the customers were interested in the little girl, because many complained that the older woman's flesh was no longer quite so fresh as the girl's... [Stabbed in the chest with a knife, t]he little girl gasped. Her screams gave way to a lingering sigh... He... rapidly sliced apart her body with the help of the cashier before handing the pieces one by one to the people waiting outside the shed... The little girl had already been completely dismembered, and the proprietor was leading the woman from the corner of the shack over to the stump. Not daring to watch any more, Willow turned and made his way down an alley. But he was pursued by the dull sound of the proprietor's ax cutting into the woman's flesh, by the woman's lacerating shriek. He shook uncontrollably, and it was only when he had rushed out of the alley and into another part of town that the sounds began to recede behind him. But, try as he might, he was unable to expel the scene he had just witnessed from his mind."

"I don't trust you little swine. You've no guts outside your own sties. But for us you'd all have run away. We are the fighting Uruk-hai! We slew the great warrior. We took the prisoners. We are the servants of Saruman the Wise, the White Hand: the Hand that gives us man's-flesh to eat. We came out of Isengard, and led you here, and we shall lead you back by the way we choose. I am Uglúk. I have spoken." "You have spoken more than enough, Uglúk," sneered the evil voice.... "Swine is it? How do you folk like being called swine by the muck-rakers of a dirty little wizard? It's orc-flesh they eat, I'll warrant."

""But if you eat this chap who's God", said Llewelyn stoutly, "how can it be horrible? If it's all right to eat God why is it horrible to eat Jim Whittle?""Because", said Dymphna reasonably, "if you eat God there's always plenty left. You can't eat God up because God just goes on and on and on and God can't ever be finished. You silly clot", she added and then went on cutting holly leaves."

"The boy sat cross-legged in the middle of the gilded platter, golden brown and oozing sweet-smelling oil, a giddy smile frozen on his face. Lovely, naive. Around him was spread a garland of green vegetable leaves and bright red radish blossoms. The stupefied investigator swallowed back the juices that rumbled up from his stomach as he gawked at the boy. A pair of limpid eyes gazed back at him, steam puffed out of the boy's nostrils, and the lips quivered as if he were about to speak.... The investigator thought he must be dreaming. He opened his eyes to survey the scene; the boy was still sitting cross-legged on the platter. "After you, Comrade Ding, old fellow", Diamond Jin said. "This is a famous dish in these parts", the Party Secretary and Mine Director said. "... It's a dish they won't forget for as long as they live, one that has drawn nothing but praise. We've earned a lot of convertible currency for the nation by serving it to our most honored guests. Such as yourself, sir." ... The boy exuded a powerful, irresistible fragrance."

"She first stressed that a chef's heart is made of steel and that a chef should never waste emotions. Rather than being human, the babies we are about to slaughter and cook are small animals in human form that are, based upon strict, mutual agreement, produced to meet the special needs of Liquorland's developing economy and prosperity. In essence, they are no different than the platypuses swimming in the tank waiting to be slaughtered."

"Nastya was left standing naked in the middle of the courtyard. Savely crossed himself, spat into his palms, took hold of the shovel's iron handle, grunted, picked it up, staggered over to the oven, and, almost at a run, pushed Nastya into the oven with a single movement. Her body erupted into orange light. Here we are! It's begun! Nastya managed to think, looking at the slightly sooty ceiling of the new oven. Then she felt the heat. It overwhelmed her like a frightening, red bear and called forth a wild, inhuman scream from her lungs."

"The skin on Nastya's neck and shoulders tightened and soon blisters began to flow over her body like drops of water. Nastya wriggled around and, though the chains had less and less of her to hold onto, they still held fast. Her head jerked very slightly, and her face turned into one gigantic, red mouth. A scream tore itself loose from her in an invisible, crimson stream. "You need to poke the coals, Sergei Arkadeyevich ... so that her rind catches ..." Savely licked the sweat from his upper lip."

"Je ne me nourris que de chair humaine; j'espère que vous serez contens du régal que je compte vous en faire, et l'on a tué pour notre souper un jeune garçon de quinze ans, que je foutis hier, et qui doit être délicieux."

"The kīnaki or relish was to be provided by an unsuspecting pononga [slave], and this time Wehe did the honours himself. While some of the kai-rākau [warriors] watched, he silently walked up behind a female slave who was crouched over a large smooth stone making dough patties from pounded fernroot. Taking his patu [club] from his belt, Wehe struck her swiftly across the back of her skull, the blunt force he used ensuring a sharp, clean fracture. The woman slumped forward, her lank hair soon saturated with blood. Turning to the pononga's companions, Wehe bellowed, "If I catch anyone else stealing from the kūmara pits you can expect the same treatment. You two, pick her up and take her to the cooking area." The servants scurried over and collected the body.... Wehe and the kai-rākau watched as the two pononga laid the body on a large rock slab. Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! The adze did its work and the head rolled away. The dogs, which had gathered instantly at the scent of blood, began licking the severed neck. The legs and arms were chopped off at the joins and two women skilfully boned the thighs before wrapping them in leaves and placing them in a basket, which was covered to stop flies getting at them.... Wehe's men observed with interest as the cook displayed his impressive butchering techniques using an obsidian knife and long-handled adze. The torso was quartered, the entrails removed and fed to the dogs, whose powerful jaws tore at them while their bushy tails wagged wildly.... "Back to work, men." Wehe clapped and the kai-rākau departed, leaving the cook's helpers washing the body parts in a stream of fresh water."

"Comme je mange ce que je fouts, cela m'évite la peine d'avoir un boucher."

"It's breakfast you want, is it?" says the great big tall woman, "it's breakfast you'll be if you don't move off from here. My man is an ogre and there's nothing he likes better than boys broiled on toast. You'd better be moving on or he'll soon be coming."

"Pigs, too frequent at our table... are no way comparable in taste or magnificence to a well grown, fat, yearling child, which roasted whole will make a considerable figure at a lord mayor's feast, or any other publick entertainment."

"... Ah! What's this I smell? Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman, Be he alive, or be he dead I'll have his bones to grind my bread." "Nonsense, dear," said his wife, "you're dreaming. Or perhaps you smell the scraps of that little boy you liked so much for yesterday's dinner...."