No, what numbed these fields, peopled with bad dreams was not the oppressive grip of a plague but rather an ailing retreat, a sort of sad widowhood. Man had started to subdue these vacant expanses, then had grown weary of eating into it, and now even the desire to preserve what had been claimed had perished. He had established everywhere an ebb, a sorrowful withdrawal. His cuttings into the forest, which were seen at long intervals, had lost their hard edges, their distinct notches: now a thick brushwood had driven its sabbath into the broad daylight of the glades, hiding the naked trunks as high as their lowest branches.
Julien Gracq
Related As a panting Tracy Ferris scrambled into the life-pod, this thought was precisely what was running t... CHRISTINA ENGELA Empathy is the new measurement of everything. It doesn't matter what religion you have, what God you... C. JOYBELL C. And not only of even mainly because of the protection it had given him - it was thanks to his own st... MICHAEL ENDE You must save what you can of your life; you musn't lose it all simply because you've lost a part. HENRY JAMES Having arrived at this point, he had found no direction in which to go save that of further withdraw... PAUL BOWLES She had lost herself in this old work, her personality dissolving into it, so that she had been set ... IAIN PEARS They were tough and sour, but as Pushkin said, 'Dearer to us than a host of truths is an exalting il... ANTON CHEKHOV The idea of going to the movies made Hugo remember something Father had once told him about going to... BRIAN SELZNICK She wasn't bitter. She was sad, though. But it was a hopeful kind of sad. The kind of sad that just ... STEPHEN CHBOSKY So, I guess we are who we are for alot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. But even... STEPHEN CHBOSKY I love my mom so much. I don't care if that's corny to say. I think on my next birthday, I'm going t... STEPHEN CHBOSKY We Are All Infinite STEPHEN CHBOSKY (All the grief she had suffered over her lifetime had moulded her face into a mask of eternal sadnes... JEAN SASSON You can't just sit there and put everyone's lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. You ... STEPHEN CHBOSKY I saw other people there. Old men sitting alone. Young girls with blue eye shadow and awkward jaws. ... STEPHEN CHBOSKY That one moment when you know you are not a sad story. You are ALIVE. STEPHAN CHBOSKY Somos quienes somos por un montón de razones.Quizás nunca conozcamos la mayoría de ellas.Pero aun... STEPHEN CHBOSKY Ambos dijeron que tomara asiento y parecían hablar en serio, así que me senté. STEPHEN CHBOSKY I know these will all be stories some day, and our pictures will become old photographs. We all beco... STEPHEN CHBOSKY So I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybewe'll never know most of them. STEPHEN CHBOSKY So I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. STEPHEN CHBOSKY There's nothing like the deep breathes after laughing that hard. Nothing in the world like a sore st... STHEPHEN CHBOSKY no more pencils, no more books, no more teachers' dirty looks, when the teacher rings the bell, drop... STEPHEN CHBOSKY I don't know the significance of this, but I find it very interesting. STEPHEN CHBOSKY Maybe it’s sad that these are now memories. And maybe it’s not sad. STEPHEN CHBOSKY In the half-century of his life, a tick on the Doomsday clock, he had borne witness to the most unbe... KATE ATKINSON Everybody clapped enthusiastically and Dr. Marx popped up from behind the podium, where he had been ... GIDEON DEFOE He knew now, and the knowledge was hard, that his task had never been to undo what he had done, but ... URSULA K. LE GUIN In the past, Flaubert implied, idiots had had no clue as to what the carbon structure of diamonds wa... ALAIN DE BOTTON He loved his job. What was advertising, anyway, but a knowledge of people and of which buttons to pu... NORA ROBERTS He loved his job. What was advertising, anyway, but a knowledge of people and of which buttons to pu... NORA ROBERTS It had been a long time since a woman had aroused his interest as Amelia Hathaway had. The moment he... LISA KLEYPAS This sense of absence had been growing ... It was wearing into him. Last night he had woken besides ... IAN MCEWAN His men had begun gathering the wounded or stunned into a small group some distance back up the slop... DEREK DONAIS ...as if someone had thrown a hand grenade into the middle of a teddy bear orgy and the only survivo... CHRISTOPHER MOORE I am often asked how it is that I am able to value people to such a deep degree. Apparently, I exhib... C. JOYBELL C. The things sane societies loved, it hated. The things sane societies hated, it loved; the things san... ALICE LUCY TRENT Then, as tonight, he had felt lonely, but soon had learnt the bounty of such loneliness. The music h... ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPéRY In his most thrilling military victory to date, Napoleon had defeated an Ottoman force eighteen thou... KELSEY BRICKL He had been given a strong faith through his parents. As an adult, in his teen years and early colle... DEENA BURNETT The Iraqis had over two decades to develop these weapons. And hiding them was an essential part of t... DAVID KAY Western man had relearned-what the rest of the world had never forgotten-that there was nothing sinf... ARTHUR C. CLARKE I have a lot of land. I bought it because I had a very strong feeling. I was in my early twenties, a... ROBERT REDFORD Despite their depressing circumstances, the Hernandez family had a certain dignity and strength abou... JAMES C. DOBSON Standing at the original Victorian counter was a man in a long black leather coat. His hair had been... JULIA STUART She had seen just now what she had only sensed before, that the whole world was ready to be their en... PATRICIA HIGHSMITH The secret was such an old one now, had so grown into me and become a part of myself, that I could n... CHARLES DICKENS They had learned that Sorhatani expected the same sort of instant obedience as her husband. She had ... CONN IGGULDEN Sam was staring at Claire with about the same amazement as his brother had shown. Claire didn’t se... ELISABETH GRACE FOLEY Up until then it had only been himself. Up to then it had been a private wrestle between him and him... JAMES JONES All of us had known how hard the death of their son had hit them. Even prior to that, he had become ... DAVE VAN HORNE I was very grateful to have heard it again. Because I guess we all forget sometimes. And I think eve... STEPHEN CHBOSKY I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. But even if... STEPHEN CHBOSKY And in an essential way, this was what he was most ashamed of: not his poor understanding of sex, no... HANYA YANAGIHARA A whole Gothic world had come to grief...there was now no armour glittering through the forest glade... EVELYN WAUGH Through all his years of roving, even on nights like this, he had remained blind to the beauty of th... WILLIAM OUTERSON There was a lot of pessimism going into the quarter for these companies. These companies hit their n... ANDREW GALLIGAN We had a couple wide shots, and we had six corners and they only had two. Their goal was just a defe... CARMEN SCHOOLCRAFT In shape they were like horrible toads, and moved in a succession of springs, but in size they were ... ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE SR. She understood that it had never just been about talent: it had also always been about money. Ethan ... MEG WOLITZER It had been a hell of a long time since he had been reduced to hiding behind a tree, and he did not ... NEAL STEPHENSON The lights were off so that his heads could avoid looking at each other because neither of them was ... DOUGLAS ADAMS Those Old Ones were gone now, inside the earth and under the sea; but their dead bodies had told the... H.P. LOVECRAFT The Ancients had no religion, but instead had what could be described as a deeper knowledge of reali... LEIF ERICSSON LEO VENESS It had been an awful thing to lose Henry the first time, to matrimony, but to discover what a false ... ANNA GODBERSEN A man inherited a field in which was an accumulation of old stone, part of an older hall. Of the old... J.R.R. TOLKIEN You deserve to be with somebody, who knows you're the one, from that very first moment he lays eyes ... C. JOYBELL C. Whereas the children had been protected originally, now a lot of these sex offenders are becoming th... JENNIFER MILLER With a glance back towards the house, he pulled the secret sketches from within. He'd been working a... KATE MORTON He had seen the plane and knew what he was getting into. It says a lot about his character. DAVID HAGEN The men who had hated [the book], and had not particularly loved Helvétius, flocked round him now. ... S. G. TALLENTYRE As Sandy and his wife warmed to the tale, one tripping up another in their eagerness to tell everyth... MRS. OLIPHANT For thousands of years, it had been nature--and its supposed creator--that had had a monopoly on awe... ALAIN DE BOTTON To have three out of five is bad enough, but these guys had all five. If these men were 50 years old... MACKIE SHILSTONE He had a real tough year at the start with all of the injuries he had. I think he's rounding into to... GERARD GALLANT He knows different now. It's the living that chase the dead. The long bones and skulls are tumbled f... HILARY MANTEL I started to empty the dishwasher and then remembered that there was an alternative to my thoughts a... SARAH MOSS [Theseus] soon found himself involved in factions and troubles; those who long had hated him had now... PLUTARCH Thinking no more about it, he stepped off into that cool space, that fast descent to her, with nothi... PATRICIA HIGHSMITH To some Humans, the promise of a patch land was worth any effort. It was an oddly predictable sort o... BECKY CHAMBERS When I came off the boat I was very proud of the thick calluses which had developed on my feet. But ... PAMELA STEPHENSON Experience was of no ethical value. It was merely the name men gave to their mistakes. Moralists had... OSCAR WILDE He had no faintest conception till that very hour of how they would look, and even doubted their exi... C.S. LEWIS I wish that Iraq had not happened - and that we had not lost touch with so many of our natural suppo... LUCY POWELL He's had that in the back of his mind ever since he was a freshman. And I knew going into this year ... TIM ATWELL He had no longer any need for home, for he carried his Gormenghast within him. All that he sought wa... MERVYN PEAKE Intrusive, thoughtless people!" said K. as he turned back into the room. The supervisor may have agr... FRANZ KAFKA What was happening, you had pastors who had been gearing up for all of their life to go plant a chur... HAROLD CHRIST The women in that ward were simple, ordinary refugee women. They came from villages or very small to... CHERYL BENARD I had been a 4-3 [scheme] guy as a player and coach, but because of the evolution of offenses, had e... BRENT GUY There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams — no throu... F. SCOTT FITZGERALD The exhilaration of battle was agreeable to him, but the sight of the dead, with their clay faces, b... AMBROSE BIERCE They were living to themselves: self, with its hopes, and promises, and dreams, still had hold of th... ELIZABETH PAYSON PRENTISS Thousands of years ago, the work that people did had been broken down into jobs that were the same e... NEAL STEPHENSON We've had to reload at a number of positions with new players, but it has turned into one of the mos... BRIAN O'REILLY We've had to reload at a number of positions with new players, but it has turned into one of the mos... BRIAN O'REILLY From the window, I had a clear view of the farmyard and the Mayor’s home, which had been converted... CAPTAIN HANK BRACKER, "SUPPRESED I RISE" She smiled. She knew she was dying. But it did not matter any longer. She had known something which ... AYN RAND If we consider eternity, into that time never entered; eternity
is not an everlasting flux of time,... DR. JOHN DONNE Spring flew swiftly by, and summer came; and if the village had been beautiful at first, it was now ... CHARLES DICKENS
More Julien Gracq
...a redoubtable alchemy was at work behind impenetrable veils as the forest prepared its nocturnal ... JULIEN GRACQ This stretch through the fogbound forest gradually lulled Grange into his favorite daydream; in it h... JULIEN GRACQ Ce qui commence par : "Je me hâtais de déplaire exprès, par crainte de déplaire naturellement" (... JULIEN GRACQ Blood had long since ceased to beat from one end to the other, but one could sense, from passages ma... JULIEN GRACQ It was a fossilized path: the will which had cut this gash out of these solitary places so that the ... JULIEN GRACQ Often, beyond the next turning, footfalls of a herd galloping across stone were heard, or further in... JULIEN GRACQ You can change the world again, instead of protecting yourself from it. JULIEN SMITH You will never be entirely comfortable. This is the truth behind the champion - he is always fightin... JULIEN SMITH This is truly a remarkable insight to Marilyn's personal world just one year before her death. DARREN JULIEN The greatest explorer on this earth never takes voyages as long as those of the man who descends to ... JULIEN GREEN The more equipment is acquired and produced by a repressive regime, the more important anonymity is. JULIEN PAIN I shall go further and say that even if an examination of the past could lead to any valid predictio... JULIEN BENDA I am probably exaggerating a little, but I owe my equilibrium to ink and paper. JULIEN GREEN We just ask him to play well and if he fits our puzzle, we'll keep him. CLAUDE JULIEN They're playing like an ordinary team, but I remember that was the case two seasons ago, CLAUDE JULIEN I enter the world called real as one enters a mist. JULIEN GREEN Whiteness is filthy. JULIEN TORMA The ability to withstand the flinch comes with the knowledge that the future will be better than the... JULIEN SMITH The man of science, the artist, the philosopher are attached to their nations as much as the day-lab... JULIEN BENDA The spy-catching business is increasingly a yuppie business. A reliable source says agents can still... JULIEN FELDMAN A child's fear is a world whose dark corners are quite unknown to grownup people; it has its sky... JULIEN GREEN We chose the languages because we wanted to help people, and the people that needed to be helped wer... JULIEN PAIN No one has paid attention to it. But now people are realizing that freedom of expression throughout ... JULIEN PAIN We're just trying to denounce what's happening here, JULIEN PAIN Only they provide independent news, at the risk of displeasing the government and sometimes courting... JULIEN PAIN Rather than accept everything the Chinese authorities says, the big players could find a common posi... JULIEN PAIN A call for free elections ... has a maximum online life of about half an hour. JULIEN PAIN We had the dream that the Internet would free the world, that all the dictatorships would collapse. ... JULIEN PAIN We sent letters, we tried to phone them. And none of them ever replied to us. JULIEN PAIN This summit is a masquerade, JULIEN PAIN True poetry is embarrassing. JULIEN TORMA Everything you are used to, once done long enough, starts to seem natural, even though it might not ... JULIEN SMITH Price is showing things at 18 guys don't usually show until their second or third year as pros. CLAUDE JULIEN We hope that after the protests the government ... withdraws the text. There is no other solution. JULIEN DRAY When youths take to the street, you don't know what can happen .... JULIEN DRAY When youths take to the street, you don't know what can happen. By digging in its heels, the governm... JULIEN DRAY Schwarzenegger has a lot of muscles, but apparently not much heart. JULIEN DRAY I am proud to be a Frenchman. I am proud to live in France, in a country where we don't execute some... JULIEN DRAY That's why if we don't put officials of high quality to work in these areas, I know what's going to ... JULIEN DRAY What's in play behind this violence is turf, JULIEN DRAY Unfortunately, Nicolas Sarkozy has contented himself with carrying out security policies for the chi... JULIEN DRAY I want to express our extreme reserve about the extension, all the more so since the measures have b... JULIEN DRAY Behind every flinch is a fear or an anxiety - sometimes rational, sometimes not. Without the fear, t... JULIEN SMITH The literature of impotence is about to develop beyond measure. JULIEN TORMA For the blind I will describe
For the deaf I will design
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