“…the impulse for transgression and a taste for abasement is not so difficult to locate and arouse. Because of course it is thrilling to be astutely defiled. To have every revered trait and inimitable asset compromised, undermined, and subverted.” DesireSubmissionTransgressionMasochismDefilementAbasementObliteration Book:Checkout 19 Source: Checkout 19
“Everybody knows deep down that life is as much about the things that do not happen as the things that do and that's not something that ought to be glossed over or denied because without frustration there would hardly be any need to daydream. And daydreams return me to my original sense of things and I luxuriate in these fervid primary visions until I am entirely my unalloyed self again. So even though it sometimes feels as if one could just about die from disappointment I must concede that in fact in a rather perverse way it is precisely those things I did not get that are keeping me alive.” SelfFrustrationDaydream Book:Pond Source: Pond
“He'd solved the problem you see—and that's the way some people are. They are ceaselessly finding ways of getting to grips with the world, of surmounting certain antipathies so as to apply themselves to it that little bit more. It's quite admirable really, how they refuse to let anything come between them and the rest of it—Oh, the rest of it! Sort of there, sort of hovering there all the time. Different ideas come to me now and again—strategies I suppose that might inculcate a little more compatibility. I just don't know if I'll ever get the hang of it if you want to know—as a matter of fact I think I've left it a little too late to cultivate the necessary outlook.” WorldSelfSolutions Book:Pond Source: Pond
“…it’s very likely that the sentences I’ll underline in future will be different from the sentences I underlined in the past, when I was in Tangier—you don’t ever step into the same book twice after all.” ReadingBooksHighlightsReadersRereadingMarginaliaUnderlining Book:Checkout 19 Source: Checkout 19
“If we have lost the knack of living, I thought, it is a safe bet to presume we have forfeited the magic of dying.” LifeDeathMagicMysteryDyingHabitLiving Book:Pond Source: Pond
“an unbearably tense and disorienting paradox that underscores everyday life in a working-class environment—on the one hand it’s an abrasive and in-your-face world, yet, at the same time, much of it seems extrinsic and is perpetually uninvolving. One is relentlessly overwhelmed and understimulated all at the same time.” RoughWorking ClassProletariatVisceralBanalityBlue Collar Book:Checkout 19 Source: Checkout 19
“Mimicry can be unkind, but at least it acknowledges that you’re there.” AbuseImitationAffirmationFlatteryParodyAcknowledgementMimicryImpersonation Book:Checkout 19 Source: Checkout 19