"It is nothing but a kind of microcosmos of communism-all that psychiatry," rumbled Pnin, in his answer to Chateau. "Why not leave their private sorrows to people? Is sorrow not, one asks, the only thing in the world people really possess?"

-chapter two, part five, page 52

***In order to exist rationally, Pnin had taught himself, during the last ( Read more... )

Some people-and I am one of them-hate happy ends. We feel cheated. Harm is the norm. Doom should not jam. The avalanche stopping in its tracks a few feet above the cowering village behaves not only unnaturally but unethically. Had I been reading about this mild old man, instead of writing about him, I would have preferred him to discover, upon his ( Read more... )

Wanted, wanted: Dolores Haze.
Hair: brown. Lips: scarlet.
Age: five thousand three hundred days.
Profession: none, or "starlet."

Where are you hiding, Dolores Haze?
Why are you hiding, darling ( Read more... )

16. The Best Man (172 pages) by Gore Vidal
8/21: A mostly unremarkable political play with flat, one-dimensional characters and a conclusion that lacks the spark it should have.

17. The Miserable Mill (208 pages in book form; re-read) by Lemony Snicket; an audiobook read by the author
8/26: I have read all of the Series of Unfortunate Events ( Read more... )

Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time ( Read more... )

"She's lying!" he thought to himself, biting his nails in anger. "The proud thing! She doesn't want to admit that she'd like playing the benefactress! Oh, base characters! They love, and it comes out like hate..."
-Raskolnikov on Dunya; part three, chapter three, page 232

***"He's an intelligent man, but it takes something more than intelligence ( Read more... )

In addition to the speculations aroused in each man's mind about the transfers and likely job changes this death might occasion, the very fact of the death of a close acquaintance evoked in them all the usual feeling of relief that it was someone else, not they, who had died ( Read more... )

"You kin feel a switch in his hand when he's talkin' to yuh," Oscar Scott complained. "Dat chastisin' feelin' he totes sorter gives yuh the protolapsis uh de cutinary linin ( Read more... )

"What do you think?" Razumikhin shouted, raising his voice even more. "You think it's because they're lying? Nonsense! I like it when people lie! Lying is man's only privilege over all other organisms. If you lie---you get to the truth! Lying is what makes me a man. Not one truth has ever been reached without first lying fourteen times or so, maybe ( Read more... )

15. The Man Who Came to Dinner (195 pages) by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart
8/14: This 1939 comedy is dated, due to the many references to people and situations in the entertainment industry at the time, but it's certainly still witty enough to be enjoyed.

***After a long dry spell where reading was concerned, I've realized that I need to ( Read more... )