middlesex quotes
jeffrey eugenides' amazing book.. i finished it last week and need to update with quotes before i finish reading lolita in tehran and get backed up.
"Emotions, in my experience, aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in "sadness," "joy," or "regret"... I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic traincar constructions like, say, "the happiness that attends disaster." or: "the disappointment of sleeping with one's fantasy." I'd like to show how "intimations of mortality brought on by aging family members" connects with "the hatred of mirrors that begins in middle age." I'd like to have a word for "the sadness inspired by failing restaurants" as well as for "the excitement of getting a room with a minibar." I've never had the right words to describe my life, and now that i've entered my story, I need them more than ever." -217
"A hot sunday night for them consisted of sitting in my brother's room, staring at Escher prints. For hours they followed figures up staircases that were also going down, or watched geese turn into fish and then into geese again." -277
"LSD? Three hits? Chapter Eleven had been tripping the whole time! He had been tripping during dinner! 'That was the hardest part,' he said. 'I was watching dad carve the chicken and then it flapped its wings and flew away!'" -313
"The only way we know it's true is that we both dreamed it. That's what reality is. It's a dream everyone has together." -343
"Gender was like a native tongue; it didn't exist before birth but was imprinted in the brain during childhood, never disappearing. Children learn to speak Male or Female the way they learn to speak English or French." -411
"And so a strange new possibility is arising. Compromised, indefinite, sketchy, but not entirely obliterated: free will is making a comeback. Biology gives you a brain. Life turns it into a mind." -479
"The surface of the sea is a mirror, reflecting divergent evolutionary paths." -484
"Emotions, in my experience, aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in "sadness," "joy," or "regret"... I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic traincar constructions like, say, "the happiness that attends disaster." or: "the disappointment of sleeping with one's fantasy." I'd like to show how "intimations of mortality brought on by aging family members" connects with "the hatred of mirrors that begins in middle age." I'd like to have a word for "the sadness inspired by failing restaurants" as well as for "the excitement of getting a room with a minibar." I've never had the right words to describe my life, and now that i've entered my story, I need them more than ever." -217
"A hot sunday night for them consisted of sitting in my brother's room, staring at Escher prints. For hours they followed figures up staircases that were also going down, or watched geese turn into fish and then into geese again." -277
"LSD? Three hits? Chapter Eleven had been tripping the whole time! He had been tripping during dinner! 'That was the hardest part,' he said. 'I was watching dad carve the chicken and then it flapped its wings and flew away!'" -313
"The only way we know it's true is that we both dreamed it. That's what reality is. It's a dream everyone has together." -343
"Gender was like a native tongue; it didn't exist before birth but was imprinted in the brain during childhood, never disappearing. Children learn to speak Male or Female the way they learn to speak English or French." -411
"And so a strange new possibility is arising. Compromised, indefinite, sketchy, but not entirely obliterated: free will is making a comeback. Biology gives you a brain. Life turns it into a mind." -479
"The surface of the sea is a mirror, reflecting divergent evolutionary paths." -484