QuotesFromBooks

edward abbey: the monkey wrench gang – isbn 0-141-18762-x

page 236: he watched the news. same as yesterday’s. the general crisis coming along nicely. nothing new except the commercials full of sly art un eco-porn. scenes of the louisiana bayous, strange birds in slow-motion flight, cypress trees bearded with spanish moss. above the primeval scene the voice of power spoke, recking with sincerity, in praise of itself, the exxon oil company – its tidiness, its fastidious care for all things wild, its concern for human needs.
coming back from the refrigirator, second beer in hand, doc paused for a moment in front of the television screen. long shot of an offshore drilling rig. music rising on concluding phrase. the words “we thought you’d like to know” passing across the screen. too much for doc. all of a sudden it was all too much. he drew back his big booted right foot and kicked the picture tube square in the eye. it imploded-exploded with a sound like the popping of a grandiose light bulb. a blue glare filled the kitchen and then died in the instant of its birth; shards and flakes of fluorescent glass slid down the walls.
doc paused to contemplate the awful thing he had done. “thus i refute mcluhan,” he muttered.
j.d. salinger: franny and zooey – isbn 0-14-023752-6

page 20: “‘all i know is i’m losing my mind,’ franny said. ‘i’m just sick of ego, ego, ego. my own and everybody else’s. i’m sick of everybody that wants to get somewhere, do something distinguished and all, be somebody interesting. it’s disgusting – it is, it is. i don’t care what anybody says.’
lane raised his eyebrows at that, and sat back, the better to make his point. ‘you sure you’re not afraid of competing?’ he asked with studied quietness. ‘i don’t know too much about it, but i’d lay odds a good psychoanalyst – i mean a really competent one – would probably take that statement-‘
‘i’m not afraid to compete. it’s just the opposite. don’t you see that? i’m afraid i will compete – that’s what scares me. … i’m ashamed of it. i’m sick of it. i’m sick of not having the courage of being an absolute nobody. i’m sick of myself and everybody else that wants to make a splash.’

nanni balestrini: i furiosi – isbn 3-89408-088-4 (deutsche uebersetzung)

seite 90: “…vor allem ist es aber fakt dass die gewalt schoen ist weil wir sie im blut haben die schoenheit dessen wenn du alles zerschlaegst es ist ein moment der dich begeistert wenn du die stichflamme siehst oder den polizisten der weglaeuft oder wenn der raeumpanzer kommt und du in der mitte des karussels stehst wenn du die scheibe zusammensacken hoerst der geruch vom traenengas die stichflammen von den mollies die leute die rennen die schreie es ist ein augenblick der steigt und dann in einem mal explodiert…”

haruki murakami: after the quake – isbn 0-099-45205-7

thailand:

page 77: “… from now on, little by little, you must prepare yourself to face death. if you devote all of your future enegry to living, you will not be able to die well. you must begin to shift gears, a little at a time. living and dying are, in a sense, of equal value.”

page 78: “… polar bears – what solitary animals they are. they mate just once a year. one time in a whole year. there is no such thing as a lasting male-female bond in their world. one male polar bear and one female polar bear meet by sheer chance somewhere in the frozen vastness, and they mate. it doesn’t take long. and once they finished, the male runs away from the female as if he is frightened to death: he runs from the place where they have mated. he never looks back – literally. the rest of the year he lives in deep solitude. mutual communication – the touching of two hearts – does not exist for them.”

super-frog saves tokyo:

page 98: “…it’s better that you don’t remember. the whole terrible fight occured in the area of imagination. that is the precise location of our battlefiled. it is there that we experience our victories and our defeats. each and every one of us is a being of limited duration: all of us eventually go down to defeat. but as ernest hemingway saw so clearly, the ulitmate value of our lives is decided not by how we win but by how we lose.”

page 100: “hmm, i don’t get that at all.” “neither do i,” frog said, his eyes still closed. “it’s just a feeling i have. what you see with your eyes is not necessarily real. my enemy is, among other things, the me inside me. inside me is the un-me. my brain is growing muddy. the locomotive is coming. …”