Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
17 – At nightfall, at the oppressive moment of transition, a storm of carnivorous mosquitoes rose out of the swamps, and a tender breath of human shit, warm and sad, stirred the certainty of death in the depths of one’s soul.
26 – Life would have been quite another matter for them both if they had learned in time that it was easier to avoid greater matrimonial catastrophes than trivial everyday miseries.
26 – But if they had learned anything together, it was that wisdom comes to us when it can no longer do any good.
40 – The only consolation, even for someone like him who had been a good man in bed, was sexual peace: the slow, merciful extinction of his venereal appetite.
42 – …he looked at her for the last and final time with eyes more luminous, more grief-stricken, more grateful than she had ever seen them in half a century of a shared life, and he managed to say to her with his last breath: “Only God knows how much I loved you.”
50 – “I have waited for this opportunity for more than half a century, to repeat to you once again my vow of eternal fidelity and everlasting love.”
Haruki Murakami on decency
I get the feeling that what I want to write are stories that raise the level of decency. No matter how dark, how forlorn circumstances may be, some sort of decency offers a glimmer of light and suggests that there is something about that can save you.
the daily news of mainichi
the marvelous madness that is japanese subculture and the serendipitous hazard that is japanese-english translation are what makes the daily news of mainichi unmissable.
the fifth month of 2008 sees middle-aged mobsters mourning the punch perm, a “sick skating sensei sullies schoolgirl” and a woman who fucked so furiously that she fainted.
Catherine Lim
I wish to express deep disappointment, shock and pain that in a national scandal of unprecedented magnitude and public outrage (the escape of Mas Selamat), it is only the little people who are held accountable and punished.
seven hours of daylight
Spanish employers respect the fact that you do have another life. During the summer months, you can do something called the “intensive schedule”: you get to work at 8am, which is terribly early for a Spaniard, but leave work at three. This gives you the rest of the day to yourself, and, because it is summer, you have seven hours of daylight to do what you want with.
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muji, new york mothership, singapore
the new muji mothership is opening in new york and they are selling and giving away the award-winning chronotebook by singapore designer, wong kok keong.
Haruki Murakami makes an important point
What I fear more than anything else is ‘psychological enclosure’ imposed by those who are pushing a particular cause. Most people need some sort of boundary, and it becomes unbearable if their boundaries disappear… there are lots of cages, or enclosures, and some people get caught up in these and find themselves unable to get out if they’re not careful…
Stories must exist to work against those psychological enclosures. A good story is not something you can see, but it should give depth and width to people’s minds. And a broad, deep-thinking mind is not something that likes to be shut off in a narrow space.
murkami’s latest
murkami’s latest novel will be the longest yet. he’s writing in the third person (a “fateful shift”) and it will be
“set against a background of the turmoil that has arisen in the post-Cold War world.”
Sydney Pollack (1934 – 2008)
Is it possible for two people… to maintain every bit of their own individuality, give up nothing, and have a relationship?
Haruki Murakami considers Dostoevsky the greatest
Haruki Murakami considers Dostoevsky the greatest:
“If I personally had to pick one writer who I consider the greatest of all time, I would choose Dostoevsky… What works like ‘The Brothers Karamazov’ or ‘The Possessed’ mean for me is the scope of their stories for a novel. It’s just really special.”
The three most important books he has read:
The Great Gatsby, The Long Goodbye and The Brothers Karamazov
Men of Tomorrow by Gerard Jones
72 – … and in the way of shy pop culture fans, they discovered that they could talk joyfully for hours without ever having to enter the painful places.
93 – … who once described his story formula as “Boy meets girl, girl gets boy into pickle, boy gets pickle into girl.”
137 – Midtown was full of half-vacant office buildings, erected on Twenties expectations and emptied by Thirties realities.
154 – (Bruce Wayne) … “And I swear by the spirits of my parents to avenge their deaths by spending the rest of my life warring on all criminals.”
there are roughly three Singapores
There are roughly three Singapores. There is, first, the Singapore of the transcended man or woman who will neverbehungryagain, she and her children, and accepts this as natural and undeniable. Second, there is the Singapore of the alwayshungry — for promotions, holiday vacations, beter grades for children, time with children, time for themselves, and money, always money. Third, there is the Singapore of the young person who neverknownhunger; he does too much, spends too much and doesn’t read enough. neverbehungryagain give the country its commands and set its directions; alwayshungry give unquestioning obedience and hard labour; neverknownhunger make everything seems worthwhile.
(inspired by E.B. White via swissmiss)
a hero comes along (in t-shirt and shorts)
ST:
Just last Friday, a man dressed in shorts and a T-shirt handed $300,000 in cash to the Red Cross (for Myanmar and Sichuan). The man, who had made an earlier contribution of the same amount, did not want to give his name to staff there.
100 holidays a year
… we are not so time rich compared to our ancestors as we think… In the Middle Ages, many Europeans enjoyed more than 100 holidays a year, plus Sundays. At the height of Rome’s decadence, more than 200 days were reserved for public merry-making.
The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño
6 – There’s a time for reciting poems and a time for fists.
47 – There’s no way to solve the problem; revolution is the only answer.
86 – Human beings are ungrateful… thoughtless and quick to forget.
114 – The problem with literature, like life… is that in the end people always turn into bastards.
154 – Literature isn’t innocent.
an uncommon prayer
May God grant commuters who launch their huge asses and over-sized bags violently into seats everlasting wedgies.
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