Tagged: American Pastoral.
October 25th, 2012
Yes, alone we are, deeply alone, and always, in store for us, a layer of loneliness even deeper. There is nothing we can do to dispose of that. No, loneliness shouldn’t surprise us, as astonishing to experience as it may be. You can turn yourself inside out, but all you are then is inside out and lonely instead of inside in and lonely. My stupid, stupid Merry dear, stupider even that your stupid father, not even blowing up buildings helps. It’s lonely if there are buildings and it’s lonely if there are buildings and it’s lonely if there are no buildings. There is no protest to be lodged against loneliness - not all the bombing campaigns in history have made a dent in it. The most lethal of manmade explosives can’t touch it. Stand in awe not of Communism, my idiot child, but of ordinary, everyday loneliness.
American Pastoral by Philip Roth

∞03:00 pm, by lostinthesounds ∩28
[Quote] [Book Quote] [American Pastoral] [1997] [favourite] [Philip Roth]
July 31st, 2012
You go to someone and you think, ‘I’ll tell him this.’ But why? The impulse is that the telling is going to relieve you. And that’s why you feel awful later - you’ve relieved yourself, and if it truly is tragic and awful, it’s not better, it’s worse - the exhibitionism inherent to a confession has only made the misery worse.
American Pastoral by Philip Roth

∞12:52 am, by lostinthesounds ∩53
[Quote] [Book Quote] [American Pastoral] [Philip Roth] [1997]
April 14th, 2012
People were standing up everywhere shouting, “This is me! This is me!” Every time you looked at them they stood up and told you who they were, and the truth of it was that they had no more idea who or what they were than he had. They believed their flashing signs, too. They ought to be standing up and shouting, “This isn’t me! This isn’t me!” They would if they had any decency. “This isn’t me!” Then you might know how to proceed through the flashing bullshit of this world.
American Pastoral by Philip Roth

∞07:24 am, by lostinthesounds ∩4
[American Pastoral] [Book Quote] [Philip Roth] [Quote] [1997]
January 18th, 2012
American Pastoral by Philip Roth

American Pastoral by Philip Roth

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  ∞08:25 am, by lostinthesounds ∩18
[American Pastoral] [Philip Roth] [Picture] [Picture Quote] [lostinthesounds] [1997] [favourite]
October 27th, 2011
American Pastoral by Philip Roth

American Pastoral by Philip Roth

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  ∞12:57 pm, by lostinthesounds ∩57
[American Pastoral] [Philip Roth] [Picture] [Picture Quote] [lostinthesounds] [1997]
October 26th, 2011
He had learned the worst lesson that life can teach - that it makes no sense.
American Pastoral by Philip Roth

∞11:08 am, by lostinthesounds ∩12
[American Pastoral] [Book Quote] [Philip Roth] [Quote] [1997]
August 25th, 2011
You fight your superficiality, your shallowness, so as to try to come at people without unreal expectations, without an overload of bias or hope or arrogance, as untanklike as you can be, sans cannon and machine guns and steel plating half a foot thick; you come at them unmenacingly on your own ten toes instead of tearing up the turf with your caterpillar treads, take them on with an open mind, as equals, man to man, as we used to say, and yet you never fail to get them wrong. You might as well have the brain of a tank. You get them wrong before you meet them, while you’re anticipating meeting them; you get them wrong while you’re with them; and then you go home to tell somebody else about the meeting and you get them all wrong again. Since the same generally goes for them with you, the whole thing is really a dazzling illusion. … The fact remains that getting people right is not what living is all about anyway. It’s getting them wrong that is living, getting them wrong and wrong and wrong and then, on careful reconsideration, getting them wrong again. That’s how we know we’re alive: we’re wrong. Maybe the best thing would be to forget being right or wrong about people and just go along for the ride. But if you can do that - well, lucky you.
American Pastoral by Philip Roth

∞04:32 am, by lostinthesounds ∩14
[American Pastoral] [Book Quote] [Philip Roth] [Quote] [1997] [favourite]
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