Literary Fiction Quotes - Page 3

I offer you your life, friend, and recommend you take it.

It is not often that I have two options to choose from. It is nice to be compelled towards something, otherwise one drifts through life unimpeded.Bhanggi

Once upon a time Karen saw somebody nobody else could see. She thought to ask an old man: who were you? Once upon a time I thought to dream of medicine. Now I dream of medicine by the sea.

As the flesh gets in the way of our ideals, we regulate ourselves unto enslavement and inhumanity.The human spirit then dies and the animal in us returns.

You know what people are doing on the other side of the world, what’s happening on another planet, but not what’s going on inside the person next to you.

It feels as though it were just yesterday Grandfather exited my life like a bullet, leaving a bleeding hole behind.

The others moved in like a wake of vultures, ready to devour their prey. she had seen it on television once. 'Scavengers,' Tatinek called them. They swoop in and feed off the carcasses of animals that are too weak to escape - lots of them on battlefields. This looked the same, only the victim wasn't there, just his writing, his typewriter, and bits of dark paper.

You already know what the machine will write on your arm. That lie you’ve been telling yourself—you know what it is. That blind spot is not really a blind spot—you’re choosing to look away. Perhaps more to the point, you already know whether you want to see it. You already know whether you’re going to use the machine. So why are you still reading this?

She let her mind drift, thinking about new lingerie designs, wishing she'd brought along her sketchpad. Inspiration could strike at the most inconvenient times--in the shower, in the car, on this road--but she was grateful it was with her again, an old companion with whom she was getting reacquainted, pleased to find they could take up where they'd left off, as if there'd been no estrangement at all.

He searched his mind for something more to say, something to take away her pain, but he could find nothing. There were no words to ease such a pain. He knew because the ache in his heart was as great as hers.

Cyrus is the meat and potatoes of my life, but Prudence was a cupcake I could enjoy just for the sheer sweetness of being with her.

The Booker thing was a catalyst for me in a bizarre way. It’s perceived as an accolade to be published as a ‘literary’ writer, but, actually, it’s pompous and it’s fake. Literary fiction is often nothing more than a genre in itself. I’d always read omnivorously and often thought much literary fiction is read by young men and women in their 20s, as substitutes for experience.

Danilo's was the kind of place where many drinking men come to hide, be it from their wives, in-laws, their jobs or life in general. it was where men and women can come to drink poison as if it was the only form of medicine available to remedy the migraine headache called life. The lighting dim and secluded, mostly covering the tables, counters and the door to the bathroom. The walls were decorated in decades of memories, favorite sports teams and other miscellaneous decor that was typical of small bars such as this one. It was too dark to tell what they were from a distance. There was a thick layer of smoke hovering in the air around the ceiling lights, the place was smothered in it but was strongest above everyone's heads. The smell was the classic stale bar odor of cigarettes and cheap cigars.

Underground, in the dark wet hole that was home to the spiders and the rats, something moved. It had no right to be down there but it belonged nowhere else. Half drowned half alive it pushed the water ahead of it into the culverts and drains as it passed. Right under the city and out into the suburbs and fields these tunnels fed into the river and the network of canals that had fed the industrial revolution. A thousand eyes, some blinded, that had never seen the sun strained in the soiled darkness. It struggled on and it listened with a thousand ears not its own and it cried.

The sublime beauty was almost hidden withing the castle walls. She believed that the treasured things in life were often hard to find - a pearl in an oyster shell, a kind word in the heat of the moment.

Darkness crept through. Shadows pried at doors, teased dull edges of recollections that never quite took hold. Memories that would have shriveled under the blinding sun of daylight. And reason.

We put our flags in soil when we arrive, as if it now belongs to us and we know where we are.

Underneath the groundyou can't hear a soundnot even the sweet falling rainyou might forget about tomorrowforget about the swallowsbut they won't forget youthey won't forget you

When you turn around, you'll see something I bet you've never seen before. If it takes your breath away, then you'll fit in nicely. If you don't feel anything, then maybe you don't belong here.

The sexual contact before this?“It was the first time.”The woman looked at Rat again, harder. The silence was more painful than the words. What she had just heard went beyond plain immorality. It was ridiculous.

A nose is ordinarily naked. A nose isn’t nipple, although there are similarities.

9 November 1989. A day nobody would forget. She had heard rumours about the wall.

War’s all either country knows, and everything seems to depend on it now.

But this bus was a bit too full. The driver only appeared to control the glass and metal around him. In reality, he was at the nose of a travelling paroxysm.

There exists an oasis where inspiration bursts forth like black gold from the fertile loam and every odd bellbird chirps a melody worth remembering. There’s no bloody map or nautical chart that can deliver you there, but you know the instant you’ve arrived because you never ever want to depart.

It was a year ago today your daughter went missing.’ Bagg had closed his eyes, feeling the death going on inside.

She opened her eyes and looked into his rather intensely. "What?" Alex asked. "This cannot be." "What can't be?" Alex asked her, more bafflement in his voice this time. "I have been reading people all my life. I can even read cats and dogs. I've been doing it all my life and i've been here longer than the two of you put together." "And?" Alex wanted to get to the point. Whatever the truth may be, he just wanted to hear it, wanted it on the table before them so he could get this over with and they can go home. "AND.....you are the first person that has nothing for me to see." "And here I was hoping you'd say I'd win the lottery or get married to a supermodel or something." Alex said, starting to laugh. "You don't understand. I don't see anything, anything at all. There is nothing to you, nothing but what I see before me." "So....what does that mean?" "It means you don't exist.

Sifting through scattered memories is like sifting through sand. Some remain, some simply slipaway…– TARA