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Quote by Garth Stein

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The Art of Racing in the Rain

This poignant story follows a terminally ill man who communicates his thoughts and feelings through his beloved dog. The narrative intertwines the man's racing career with his life's lessons and the unbreakable connection with his canine companion. more

Author

Garth Stein
Garth Stein

Garth Stein is an American author known for his unique literary style and profound themes, often exploring issues such as human-animal relationships, animal rights, and environmental protection. Born on December 6, 1964, Stein transitioned from a career in advertising to writing, achieving widespread acclaim with his first novel, 'The Memoirs of a Geisha'. more

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“The Housefly I’m just a little pesky thing, Flying to eke out a living. So round and round and round I hiss, And fill the air with busy bliss. Of hand and swatter steering clear, I venture to light on crumbs and beer. In salad days I was a Grecian king. War and famine make me sing. How much they’d like to whack me flat, With a newspaper or even a baseball bat. Splat!”

“You are my people. Whether my grandmother decrees it or not, you are my people, and always will be. But I will fly against you, if need be, to ensure that there is a future for those who cannot fight for it themselves. Too long have we preyed on the weak, relished doing so. It is time that we became better than our foremothers." The words she had given the Thirteen months ago. "There is a better world out there," she said again. "And I will fight for it." She turned Abraxos away, toward the plunge behind them. "Will you?”

“Elide saw the sorrow on her face before she reached her. The dullness and pain in the golden eyes. She went still. "Who?" Manon's throat bobbed. "All." All of the Thirteen. All those fierce, brilliant witches. Gone. Elide put a hand to her heart, as if it could stop it from cracking. But Manon closed the distance between them, and even with that grief in her battered, bloodied face, she put a hand on Elide's shoulder. In comfort. As if the witch had learned to do such things.”

“Behind her, had she looked, she would have seen Glennis. And Bronwen. Petrah Blueblood. Aedion Ashryver and Lysandra and Ren Allsbrook. Prince Galan and Captain Rolfe and Ansel of Briarcliff, Ilias and the Fae royals beside them. Had she looked, she would have seen the small white flowers they bore. Would have wondered how and where they had gotten them in the dead heart of winter. Had she looked, she would have seen the people gathered behind them, so many they streamed all the way to the city gates. Would have seen the humans standing side by side with the Crochans and Ironteeth. All come to honor the Thirteen.”

“Förresten hade pappan börjat tänka på ett alldeles nytt sätt. Mer och mer sällan funderade han över allt han hade varit med om under sitt vänliga och brokiga liv, och lika sällan drömde han om vad alla de kommande dagarna skulle ge honom. Hans tankar gled som båten, utan minnen och drömmar, de var som gråa vandrande vågor som inte ens hade lust att komma fram till horisonten. Pappan försökte inte prata med hatifnattarna längre. Han stirrade ut över havet som de, hans ögon hade blivit bleka som deras och lånade himlens växlande färg. Och när nya öar kom emot dem rörde han sig inte, bara svansen slog några slag mot durken. Jag undrar, tänkte pappan en gång när de glöd framåt i en lång trött dyning, jag undrar om jag inte håller på att börja likna en hatifnatt.”

“On September 16, in defiance of the cease-fire, Ariel Sharon’s army circled the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, where Fatima and Falasteen slept defenselessly without Yousef. Israeli soldiers set up checkpoints, barring the exit of refugees, and allowed their Lebanese Phalange allies into the camp. Israeli soldiers, perched on rooftops, watched through their binoculars during the day and at night lit the sky with flares to guide the path of the Phalange, who went from shelter to shelter in the refugee camps. Two days later, the first western journalists entered the camp and bore witness. Robert Fisk wrote of it in Pity the Nation: They were everywhere, in the road, the laneways, in the back yards and broken rooms, beneath crumpled masonry and across the top of garbage tips. When we had seen a hundred bodies, we stopped counting. Down every alleyway, there were corpses—women, young men, babies and grandparents—lying together in lazy and terrible profusion where they had been knifed or machine-gunned to death. Each corridor through the rubble produced more bodies. The patients at the Palestinian hospital had disappeared after gunmen ordered the doctors to leave. Everywhere, we found signs of hastily dug mass graves. Even while we were there, amid the evidence of such savagery, we could see the Israelis watching us. From the top of the tower block to the west, we could see them staring at us through field-glasses, scanning back and forth across the streets of corpses, the lenses of the binoculars sometimes flashing in the sun as their gaze ranged through the camp. Loren Jenkins [of the Washington Post] cursed a lot. Jenkins immediately realized that the Israeli defense minister would have to bear some responsibility for this horror. “Sharon!” he shouted. “That fucker [Ariel] Sharon! This is Deir Yassin all over again.”

“Hysteria! And grief and bitterness. That's what goes on. Not satisfied that our fighters evacuated the city, the enemy went after their women and children whom they left behind in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, slaughtered them, and left their bodies stacked in grotesque piles in the muddy lanes, fly-covered, rotting in the sun. They went after our Palestine Research Center the repository of our culture and history in exile, whose treasures we had been collecting since the day we left Palestine, looted it then burned it to the ground. Fifteen thousand of our people, including boys under the age if twelve and men over the age of eighty, were picked up and put in a concentration camp called Ansar. Our community in Lebanon, half a million men, women, and children found itself suddenly severed from institutions (educational, medical, cultural, economic, and social) they had depended on for their everyday living, which the enemy destroyed. Our fighters, the mainspring of our national struggle, were shipped to thre deserts of Algeria, the outback of Sudan, and the scorching plain of Yemen. Our leadership sought refuge in Tunisia. And when the choked psyche of our nation gasped for air, some months later, we lunged atat each other in civil war, because we had failed our people and ourselves. Our promises had proved illusory.”