Novelists From The United States

"Oh, there is nothing better than intelligent conversation except thrashing about in bed with a naked girl and Egmont Light Italic."

"It is not true that Kafka wanted Brod to burn his manuscripts after his death. Rather it is the case that Kafka was on fire to be published...rushed to the postbox day after day...ate with editors...intrigued for favorable notices...read the Writer’s Digest...consorted with critics...autographed napkins...made himself available to librarians...spoke on the radio..."

"I am never needlessly obscure—I am needfully obscure, when I am obscure."

"LeDuff’s argument (in Shock Art #37) that an image, once floated on the international art-sea, is a fish that anyone may grab with impunity, and make it his own, would not persuade an oyster. Questions of primacy are not to be scumbled in this way, which, had he been writing from a European perspective, he would understand, and be ashamed. The brutality of the American rape of the world’s exhibition spaces and organs of art-information has distanciated his senses. The historical aspects have been adequately trodden by others, but there is one category yet to be entertained—that of the psychological. The fact that LeDuff is replicated in every museum, in every journal, that one cannot turn one’s gaze without bumping into this raw plethora, LeDuff, LeDuff, LeDuff (whereas poor Bruno, the true progenitor, is eating the tops of bunches of carrots)—what has this done to LeDuff himself? It has turned him into a dead artist, but the corpse yet bounces in its grave, calling attention toward itself in the most unseemly manner. But truth cannot be swallowed forever. When the real story of low optical stimulus is indited, Bruno will be rectified."

"It takes someone very special to help you forget someone very special."

"They glanced at one another like tigers taking measure of a menacing new rival. But in this kind of jungle you could never be sure where the real danger lurked."

"Love means never having to say you're sorry."

"Who do you think?" "I don't know," growled an angry Abel. "Mitch Rapp." Abel stopped pacing. "How? That's impossible." "Apparently not."

""Waheed? Rashind said in utter disbelief. "That cannot be. He is dead." "He is now," Tayyib said, not trying to be funny."

"Rapp again noted the poor tactics and discipline, and asked himself, "Who in the hell are these clowns?""

"Who the hell is he?" asked McMahon. "He's the best sniper I've ever seen. He can track anything." "He works for you now?" "Yep." "Lovely. God, I hope you don't end up with the FBI on your doorstep someday." "You and I both."

"Who's your friend?" Coleman started to answer, and then McMahon put his and out and cut him off. "Never mind," the agent said. "I don't want to know. Do I?" Coleman shrugged. "It wasn't like I was going to give you his real name."

"He was wearing jeans, hiking boots, and a black Mountain Hard-wear fleece jacket. He had a large black rubber dive watch on his right wrist, his hair was dark and shaggy, and although he was a good seventy-five pounds lighter than the FBI agent, McMahon had no doubt the little scrapper could kill him without breaking a sweat. This guy was Special Forces from head to toe."

""I hope no one around here got any paper cuts while I was out getting shot and stabbed." - Rapp"

""Because I am not a coward. Because I don't have other people do my work for me. I do it face to face. I don't blow up houses and kill innocent bystanders." Claudia looked away and swallowed hard."

"Hold on a minute. We haven't done anything wrong." "You're kidding...right?" Rapp looked at him like he'd lost his mind. "Well... nothing recently. I mean for Christ's sake, we're on the same team. Aren't we?"

""I have no doubt you could find someone who would take the job for a million and a half, and I also have no doubt that Monsieur Rapp would kill that man before he got anywhere near him." - Gould"

"This was, after all, the country of Napoleon, who had once dominated all of Europe. In less than a century they had gone from one of the world's preeminent powers to a country incapable of putting up a fight."

""Easy doesn't factor into it for me, Senator. I'm talking about right and wrong." - Rapp"

"It's not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books that will never be written. The books that will never be read. And all due to the fear of censorship. As always, young readers will be the real losers."

"My parents raised me, of course, but it was a different adult who shaped my mental landscape. My imagination, my capacity for empathy, my sense of curiosity and my awareness that, while I was unique, I wasn't alone: others felt the same fears and feelings as me. On top of all that, this woman taught me about menstruation, masturbation, making out and sex, which is a damned sight more than any teacher ever did. I was not the only one she took under her wing: there are millions and millions of us who were shaped by her – whole generations who grew up under her tutelage – because this woman is Judy Blume."

"But if you aren't any religion, how are you going to know if you should join the Y or the Jewish Community Center?"

"We must — we must — we must increase our bust!"

"Are you there God? It's Me, Margaret...."

"Let children read whatever they want and then talk about it with them. If parents and kids can talk together, we won't have as much censorship because we won't have as much fear."

"I am a farmer singing at the plow"

"… Dr. Lightman was an astrophysicist, a card-carrying wizard of space and time, with a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology and subsequent posts at Cornell and Harvard. In 1989, at the peak of his prowess as a physicist, he began to walk away from the world of black holes to enter the world of black ink and the uncertain, lonely life of the writer."

"In the 1950s, academics forecast that as a result of new technology, by the year 2000 we could have a twenty-hour workweek. Such a development would be a beautiful example of technology at the service of the human being. ...According to the Bureau of Statistics, the goods and services produced per hour of work in the United States has indeed more than doubled since 1950. ...However, instead of reducing the workweek, the increased efficiencies and productivities have gone into increasing the salaries of workers. ...Workers... rather have used their increased efficiencies and resulting increased disposable income to purchase more material goods. ...Indeed, in a cruel irony, the workweek has actually lengthened. ...More work is required to pay for more consumption, fueled by more production, in an endless, vicious circle."

"The relationship between science and the humanities is two-way. Science changes our view of the world and our place in it. In the other direction, the humanities provide the store of ideas and images and language available to us in understanding the world. The exploding star of A.D. 1054, the Crab Nebula, was sighted and documented by the Chinese, but nowhere mentioned in the West, where the Aristotelian notion of the immortality of stars still held sway. We often do not see what we do not expect to see."

"My dad always told us never to live where we could see the smoke from another man's chimney. He told us we should never live so close to another's house that the chickens would mingle in the woods."

"Anyway, you know full well I never wear boutonnieres. The decoration has fallen into disrepute. The only remaining devotees of the practice are roués and saxophone players."

"I trust the clergy are not involved in this problem. They‘re notoriously unscientific. One can‘t attack them with mathematics."

"Circumstantial evidence, Markham, is the utt‘rest tommyrot imag‘nable. Its theory is not unlike that of our present-day democracy. The democratic theory is that if you accumulate enough ignorance at the polls, you produce intelligence; and the theory of circumst‘ntial evidence is that if you accumulate a sufficient number of weak links, you produce a strong chain."

"Only, as long as we‘re going insane we may as well go the whole way. A mere shred of sanity is of no value."

"A fairy tale in terms of blood—a world in anamorphosis—a perversion of all rationality.… It’s unthinkable, senseless, like black magic and sorcery and thaumaturgy. It’s downright demented."

"As I understand it, your policemen are chosen by their height and weight; they must meet certain requirements as to heft—as thought the only crimes they had to cope with were riots and gang feuds. Bulk—the great American ideal, whether in art, architecture, table d‘hôte meals, or detectives. An entrancin‘ notion."

"“Good God!” he mummered. “I don‘t know what to believe.” “In that respect,” returned Vance, “you‘re in the same disheartenin‘ predic‘ment as all the philosophers.”"

"He spent considerable time at his clubs; his favorite was the Stuyvesant, because, as he explained to me, its membership was drawn largely from the political and commercial ranks, and he was never drawn into a discussion which required any mental effort"

"Giving full rein to one‘s cynicism as one goes along produces a normal outlet and maintains an emotional equilibrium."

"“Oh, my dear fellow! I’m not indulgin’ in implications. I’m merely givin’ tongue to my youthful curiosity, don’t y’ know.”"

"“You’re probably right,” sighed Vance. “I haven’t any coruscatin’ arguments to combat you with. Only, I’m disappointed. I don’t like anticlimaxes, especially when they don’t jibe with my idea of the dramatist’s talent. Pardee’s death at this moment is too deuced neat—it clears things up too tidily. There’s too much utility in it, and too little imagination.”"

"“Do you play chess, by the by?” asked Vance. “Used to. But no more. A beautiful game, though—if it wasn't for the players.”"

"Katie commented that Americans had lost the ability to enjoy themselves. “We watch television,” Dave said."

"Gambini was addicted to asking the sort of ultimate questions about which one could speculate endlessly with no fear of ever arriving at a solution."

"We’re talking about something we all want very much to find. And that automatically makes Ed’s conclusions suspect."

"It had occurred to Rimford, at about the time he approached fifty, that the chief drawback in contemplating the enormous gulfs of time and space that constitute the bricks and mortar of the cosmologist is that one acquires a dismaying perception of the handful of years allotted a human being."

"Ah, Lord, if I doubt You, it is perhaps because You hide Yourself so well."

"Secrecy is a compulsive reflex in this country. It strangles thought, delays scientific progress, and destroys integrity."

"“I can’t imagine,” said Dupre, “a better way to unnerve people than to tell them there’s no cause for alarm.”"

"Politicians always seemed to be willing to sacrifice the general welfare to win votes."