last of white teeth by zadie smith
They had stopped here, west of Tokat, to catch themselves a Nazi.
Shiva put his hand on Samad's shoulder. "So why don't we sod the fucking carnation and go and cook you a curry - sun'll be down in twenty minutes. Come on, you can tell Shiva all about it. Not because I give a fuck, you understand, but I have to work here too and you're driving me mad, mate."
If religion is the opiate of the people, tradition is an even more sinister analgesic, simply because it rarely appears sinister.
If religion is a tight band, a throbbing vein, and a needle, tradition is a far homlier concoction: poppy seeds ground into tea; a sweet cocoa drink laced with cocaine; the kind of thing your grandmother might have made.
She was that age. Whatever she said burst like genius into centruies of silence. Whatever she touched was the first stroke of its kind. Whatever she believed was not formed by faith but carved from certainty. Whatever she thought was the first time such a thought had even been thunk.
"That girl," tutted Alsana as her front door slammed. "Swallowed an encyclopedia and a gutter at the same time."
And underneath it all , there remained an ever-present anger and hurt, the feeling of belonging nowhere that comes to people who belong everywhere..
Girls either wanted him or wanted to improve him, but most often a combination of the two. They wanted to improve him until he justified the amount they wanted him.
His mind was a small thing with big holes through which passions reguluarly seeped out.
(in his family therapy had long supplanted Judiasm)
.. to compare notes and consolidate their displeasure.
.. and she had always been convinced that sacrifice was nine tenths of parenting.
.. to count on the arrival of tomorrow was an indulgence, and every service in the house, from the milkman to the electricity, was paid for on a strictly daily basis so as not to spend money on utilities or goods that would be wasted should God turn up in all his holy vengeance the very next day. Bowdenism gave a whole new meaning to the phrase 'hand to mouth.' This was living in the eternal instant, c easelessly teetering on the precipice of total annihilation; there are people who take a great deal of drugs simply to experience something comparable to eithey-four-year-old Hortense Bowden's day-to-day existence.
"I gat so tired wid de church always tellin' me I'm a woman or I'm nat heducated enough. Everybody always tryin' to heducate you; heducate you about dis, heducate you about dat... Dat's always bin de poblem wid de women in dis family. Somebody always tryin to heducate them about someting, pretendin it all about learnin when it all about a battle of de wills. ..."
The coin rose and flipped as a coin would rise and flip every time in a perfect world, flashing its light and then revealing its dark enough times to mesmerize a man.
"No Joyce, love's not the fucking reason." Irie was standing on the Galfen doorstep, watching own substantial breath in the freezing night air. "It's a four-letter word that sells life insurance and hair conditioner. .."
If Star Wars - secretely Ryan's favorite film - The Good! The Evil! The Force! So simple So true - is truly the sum of all archaic myths and the purest allegory of life (as Ryan believed it was), then faith, unadulterated, ignorant faith, is the biggest fuck-off light saber in the universe.
Shiva put his hand on Samad's shoulder. "So why don't we sod the fucking carnation and go and cook you a curry - sun'll be down in twenty minutes. Come on, you can tell Shiva all about it. Not because I give a fuck, you understand, but I have to work here too and you're driving me mad, mate."
If religion is the opiate of the people, tradition is an even more sinister analgesic, simply because it rarely appears sinister.
If religion is a tight band, a throbbing vein, and a needle, tradition is a far homlier concoction: poppy seeds ground into tea; a sweet cocoa drink laced with cocaine; the kind of thing your grandmother might have made.
She was that age. Whatever she said burst like genius into centruies of silence. Whatever she touched was the first stroke of its kind. Whatever she believed was not formed by faith but carved from certainty. Whatever she thought was the first time such a thought had even been thunk.
"That girl," tutted Alsana as her front door slammed. "Swallowed an encyclopedia and a gutter at the same time."
And underneath it all , there remained an ever-present anger and hurt, the feeling of belonging nowhere that comes to people who belong everywhere..
Girls either wanted him or wanted to improve him, but most often a combination of the two. They wanted to improve him until he justified the amount they wanted him.
His mind was a small thing with big holes through which passions reguluarly seeped out.
(in his family therapy had long supplanted Judiasm)
.. to compare notes and consolidate their displeasure.
.. and she had always been convinced that sacrifice was nine tenths of parenting.
.. to count on the arrival of tomorrow was an indulgence, and every service in the house, from the milkman to the electricity, was paid for on a strictly daily basis so as not to spend money on utilities or goods that would be wasted should God turn up in all his holy vengeance the very next day. Bowdenism gave a whole new meaning to the phrase 'hand to mouth.' This was living in the eternal instant, c easelessly teetering on the precipice of total annihilation; there are people who take a great deal of drugs simply to experience something comparable to eithey-four-year-old Hortense Bowden's day-to-day existence.
"I gat so tired wid de church always tellin' me I'm a woman or I'm nat heducated enough. Everybody always tryin' to heducate you; heducate you about dis, heducate you about dat... Dat's always bin de poblem wid de women in dis family. Somebody always tryin to heducate them about someting, pretendin it all about learnin when it all about a battle of de wills. ..."
The coin rose and flipped as a coin would rise and flip every time in a perfect world, flashing its light and then revealing its dark enough times to mesmerize a man.
"No Joyce, love's not the fucking reason." Irie was standing on the Galfen doorstep, watching own substantial breath in the freezing night air. "It's a four-letter word that sells life insurance and hair conditioner. .."
If Star Wars - secretely Ryan's favorite film - The Good! The Evil! The Force! So simple So true - is truly the sum of all archaic myths and the purest allegory of life (as Ryan believed it was), then faith, unadulterated, ignorant faith, is the biggest fuck-off light saber in the universe.