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Quote by Thomas Pynchon

“Perhaps the only reason they survived, Stencil reasoned, was that they were not alone. God knew how many more there were with a hothouse sense of time, no knowledge of life, and at the mercy of Fortune.”

Book:V.

Work

This book delves into the complexities of political intrigue and the human psyche, following the journey of V. as they navigate a world rife with manipulation and ambition. more

Author

Thomas Pynchon

Thomas Pynchon is an American novelist born on May 8, 1937. His works are known for their complex narrative structures, rich symbolism, and profound social criticism. His representative works include 'The Crying of Lot 49' and 'Gravity's Rainbow'. more

“London has swallowed up many millions of young men called Smith... Lodging off the Euston Road, there were experiences, again experiences, such as change a face in two years from a pink innocent oval to a face lean, contracted, hostile. But of all this what could the most observant of friends have said except what a gardener says when he opens the conservatory door in the morning and finds a new blossom on his plant: — It has flowered; flowered from vanity, ambition, idealism, passion, loneliness, courage, laziness, the usual seeds, which all muddled up (in a room off the Euston Road), made him shy, and stammering, made him anxious to improve himself, made him fall in love with Miss Isabel Pole, lecturing in the Waterloo Road upon Shakespeare. Was he not like Keats? she asked; and reflected how she might give him a taste of Antony and Cleopatra and the rest; lent him books; wrote him scraps of letters; and lit in him such a fire as burns only once in a lifetime, without heat, flickering a red gold flame infinitely ethereal and insubstantial over Miss Pole; Antony and Cleopatra; and the Waterloo Road. He thought her beautiful, believed her impeccably wise; dreamed of her, wrote poems to her, which, ignoring the subject, she corrected in red ink; he saw her, one summer evening, walking in a green dress in a in a green dress in a square. ‘It has flowered,’ the gardener might have said, had he opened the door; had he come in, that is to say, any night about this time, and found him writing; found him tearing up his writing; found him finishing a masterpiece at three o'clock in the morning and running out to pace the streets, and visiting churches, and fasting one day, drinking another, devouring Shakespeare, Darwin, The History of Civilisation, and Bernard Shaw.”

Youth Personal Development Young Love Passionate Living Passionate Life Being Young Beauty Of Youth Flame Of Youth

Book:Mrs. Dalloway

Source: Mrs. Dalloway

“...it was encouraging too, for where the returned Anglo-Indian sat by rights (he knew crowds of them) in the Oriental Club biliously summing up the ruin of the world, here was he, as young as ever; envying young people their summer time and the rest of it, and more than suspecting from the words of a girl, from a housemaid's laughter — intangible things you couldn't lay your hands on—that shift in the whole pyramidal accumulation which in his youth had seemed immoveable. On top of them it had pressed; weighed them down, the women especially, like those flowers Clarissa's Aunt Helena used to press between sheets of grey blotting-paper with Littré's dictionary on top, sitting under the lamp after dinner.”

Youth Lost Youth Being Young Young Vs Old Feeling Young Gone Youth

Book:Mrs. Dalloway

Source: Mrs. Dalloway

“I've got so used to my life being challenging and fraught with danger that I don't question it any more. Whether I’m knocking on the door of a hardcore sex shop, walking through suburban streets being verbally abused and spat on, or being threatened on the tube, I don't give in. I don’t dress normally to have an easy life. The pilgrimage down the King’s Road to get to the Shop (Sex: everyone calls it ‘the Shop’), the place I want to hang out and buy stuff, is one of the scariest things I do — running the gauntlet of teds who want to kill people like me — but nothing will stop me looking the way I want. It’s a commitment.”

Determination Punk Violence Against Women Fashion Statement 1970s Commitment And Attitude Being Young

Book:Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys

Source: Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys