20 quotes found
“...as I get older, I find myself insisting on my right to be philosophically sloppy.”
“Look, the truth belongs to the guy who's best at sticking to his story,' said Ferguson.”
“Only sometimes when we pick and choose among the rules we discover later that we have set aside something precious in the process.”
“I miss being a student," said Abdul Wahid. "I miss the passionate discussions with my friends, and most of all the hours among the books.”
“You Anglo-Saxons have largely broken away from such dependence on family. Each generation feels perfectly free to act alone and you are not afraid.”
“The human race is all the same when it comes to romantic relations,' said the Major. 'A startling absence of impulse control combined with complete myopia.”
“He cursed himself for having assumed the weather would be sunny. Perhaps it was the result of evolution, he thought--some adaptive gene that allowed the English to go on making blithe outdoor plans...”
“We are all small-minded people, creeping about the earth grubbing for our own advantage and making the very mistakes for which we want to humiliate our neighbors.”
“You are a wise man, Major, and I will consider your advice with great careand humility." He finished his tea and rose from the table to go to his room. "But I must ask you, do you really understand...”
“He opened his mouth to say that she looked extremely beautiful and deserved armfuls of roses, but the words were lost in committee somewhere, shuffled aside by the parts of his head that worked ful...”
“I have produced no children of my own and my husband is dead," she replied, an acid tone in her voice. "Thus I am more to be pitied than revered. I am expected to give up the shop to my nephew, who...”
“But it's not enough to be in love. It's about how you spend your days, what you do together, who you choose as friends, and most of all it's what work you do ... Better to break both our hearts now...”
“...I tell myself it does not matter what one reads--favorite authors, particular themes--as long as we read something. It is not even important to own the books.”
“Despite his attempts to maintain a vigorous structure of errands, golf games, visits, and meetings, there were sometimes days like this one, filled with rain and touched with a gnawing sense of par...”
“Memories were like tomb paintings, thought the Major, the colors still vivid no matter how many layers of mud and sand time deposited. Scrape at them and they come up all red and blazing.”
“Look here, it's all very tidy and convenient to see the world in black and white,' said the Major, trying to soften his tone slightly. 'It's a particular passion of young men eager to sweep away th...”
“My dear Mrs. Ali, I would hardly refer to you as old," he said. "You are in what I would call the very prime flowering of mature womanhood." It was a little grandiose but he hoped to surprise a blu...”
“He had never imagined so clearly the consequences of mailing a letterthe impossibility of retrieving it from the iron mouth of the box; the inevitability if its steady progress through the postal s...”
“You are a wise man, Major, and I will consider your advice with great care—and humility." He finished his tea and rose from the table to go to his room. "But I must ask you, do you really understan...”
“He had never imagined so clearly the consequences of mailing a letter—the impossibility of retrieving it from the iron mouth of the box; the inevitability if its steady progress through the postal ...”
