“What would Walt Whitman do?” HumorCity On FireGarth Risk HallbergWalt Whitman Book:City on Fire Source: City on Fire
“Daddy just repeated the word, internship. As an alibi, it was a thing of beauty: its overtones of responsibility, of upward aspiration, were perfectly calculated to jam his circuits. Well, you know, we've already booked you a seat on the first manned spaceflight, but I suppose if you have an internship . . .” HumorCity On FireGarth Risk HallbergInternship Book:City on Fire Source: City on Fire
“College stirred in her a certain contempt for virtues like kindness and persistence. She would have appeared to have been a kind and persistent person herself, but a steady diet of Antonioni films and an introductory course on existentialism had awakened her to the fact that she wanted more.” HumorCollegeCity On FireGarth Risk Hallberg Book:City on Fire Source: City on Fire
“Some young man has wronged you, hasn't he?' From a person who renounced on principle the possibility of transcendental morality, she thought, it was an interesting choice of words. 'None of them's stuck around long enough to wrong me, Bruno.' He waved a hand dismissively. 'Romance is a fiction anyway. A myth to sell greeting cards.' Still, he seemed ready, given a name and address, to go challenge the malefactor, like some feudal-era father defending his daughter's chastity. This was all in the eyes, of course. The rest of the face stayed perfectly composed.” HumorDialogueCity On FireGarth Risk HallbergDuel Book:City on Fire Source: City on Fire
“The cushions of my friend's couch were some kind of rubberized velour, the windows were uncurtained, and at five a.m. the birds were all atwitter and the light, the L.A. light everyone goes on and on about, was right in my East Coast eyes. Give me New York any day, I thought. But when New York came, it was with fangs and claws, in a nightmare I now woke from screaming.” HumorNew YorkLos AngelesWest CoastEast CoastCity On FireGarth Risk Hallberg Book:City on Fire Source: City on Fire
“Between the whiskers scraggling down his neck and the now-crooked glasses, he could have been the Black Allen Ginsberg.” HumorCity On FireGarth Risk HallbergAllen Ginsberg Book:City on Fire Source: City on Fire