2. desember

15 favorittsitater - kan du gjette hvor de kommer fra? Flere av dem har blitt nevnt på bloggen tidligere.

1. The example of a syllogism that he had studied in Kiesewetter's logic: Caius is a man, men are mortal, therefore Caius is mortal, had throughout his whole life seemed to him right only in relation to Caius, but not to him at all.

2. Freddie experienced the sort of abysmal soul-sadness which afflicts one of Tolstoy's Russian peasants when, after putting in a heavy day's work strangling his father, beating his wife, and dropping the baby into the city's reservoir, he turns to the cupboards, only to find the vodka bottle empty.

3. To the dumb question "why me?" the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply: why not?

4. He read his own obituary and an editorial lamenting his demise and praising his fortitude and immediately began to think up witty ways of writing to the paper to announce his continued and uninterrupted existence. The other two joined in the game with enthusiasm, and soon all three of them were howling with laughter and emptying bottles at a rate which would have alarmed even a depressed Scandinavian.

5. The only means of ridding a man of crime is ridding him of freedom.

6. "They ate her," said Brother Number One. "With porridge. That's what 'ran away and never seen again' means in these parts. It means 'eaten'." "Um, and what about 'happily ever after'?" asked David, a little uncertainly. "What does that mean?" "Eaten quickly," said Brother Number One. And with that they reached the dwarf's house. 

7. Returning his pen to its holder, he told us, "I will have him gutted with that scythe. I will hang him by his own intestines." At this peace of dramatic exposition, I could not help but roll my eyes. A length of intestines would not carry the weight of a child, my less a full grown man.

8. Perhaps these poor devils have never stopped to think about the slow sequence of torment that the swift, efficient wording of the death sentence entails? Have they ever had a moment's pause at the heart-rending idea that inside the man whose head they are severing there is a mind; a mind that was expecting to live, a soul that wasn't the least prepared for death? No. All they see is the downwards motion of a triangular blade, and probably believe that for the condemned man there is nothing before or afterwards.

9. With his lips clamped firmly onto hers, he probed the fleshy floor of her mouth, then moved round inside the teeth of her lower jaw to the empty place where three years ago a wisdom tooth had crookedly grown until removed under general anaesthesia. 

10. What is truly strange is that I, who spared not only innocent lives but several guilty ones as well (for at certain moments I was overcome by a kind of indifference, and the prisoners reaped the benefits), was hated even more than some of my comrades... I think the prisoners condemned to death vaguely consoled themselves with the idea that they were dealing with madmen or monsters; whereas I was an ordinary, sad little man who coughed, wore glasses, had a little snub nose and delicate hands. 

11. ...Indians made very inadequate slaves. They would not give up their gods and preferred to starve themselves to death rather than submit to indignity. The Negroes on the other hand, being from different parts of West Africa, had no common language, so it was a simple matter to confuse them and to brutalise them into being enlightened by Christianity. 

12. An odd thought suddenly struck him. It took him by considerable surprise, but he couldn't really see what was wrong with it. 

13. The gunman is useless. I know it. He knows it. The whole bank knows it. Even my best mate, Marvin, know it, and he's more useless than the gunman. The worst part about the whole thing is that Marv's car is standing outside in a fifteen-minute parking zone. We're all facedown on the floor, and the car's only got a few minutes left on it.

14. There was a point to this story, but it has temporarily escaped the chronicler's mind.

15. Remember that I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed. Everywhere I see bliss, from which I alone am irrevocably excluded. I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous. 


Her er en oversikt over det jeg skal skrive om i desember.