Post a random quote from a book you're reading

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Fnord
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15 Oct 2019, 12:01 pm

Stikky was not an excellent spacer.  He had been up and down the rank ladder several times: promoted because time had passed; demoted because he overslept or failed an inspection.  He was, however, an excellent computer tech.  He intuitively understood the workings of the Navy's information systems better than any of the officers, indeed, better than anyone on the ship.  It was Stikky to whom the other ratings turned when connections failed, or new installations balked, or old devices slowed.  More than once, another rating got the credit and a promotion based on something Stikky did.

Yet in all of this, Stikky was content.  He enjoyed what he did; he had a continuing parade of devices to puzzle through, install, and confirm as operational.  As section officers cycled in, each tried to rehabilitate Stikky as a spacer, soon found that the network suffered, and so learned to leave Stikky alone.

Stikky was the butt of good-natured derision, which he ignored, or didn't notice.  It was always good-natured because the network suffered if it wasn't.  Today's ribbing was somehow different.

"Stikky!  The Captain wants to see you!"

"You're in trouble now!  Did you let his link crash?"

Stikky was immune to their comments and ignored them, until the Lieutenant touched his shoulder firmly, and said, "Stand up.  Let's see you.  Your tunic has a spot; let's get it changed.  The Captain wants you on the bridge."

It took longer than he expected and the Lieutenant was starting to get nervous.


-- Agent of the Imperium, Copyright © 2015 by Marc Miller


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BenderRodriguez
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15 Oct 2019, 5:25 pm

IsabellaLinton wrote:
Graham's Magazine, July 1848 in review of Wuthering Heights:

How a human being could have attempted such a book as the present without committing suicide before he had finished a dozen chapters, is a mystery. It is a compound of vulgar depravity and unnatural horrors, such as we might suppose a person, inspired by a mixture of brandy and gunpowder, might write for the edification of fifth-rate blackguards.


:skull: Be still, my heart ... :skull:


Whatever the intentions, this is still a great homage and in a way spot on (it's difficult to image somebody having that kind of mental fortitude)!

IsabellaLinton wrote:
They are abstract and bodiless. Their love is feline; it is tigerish … Their actions and sayings are like those of monomaniacs, or persons who have breathed nitrous oxide. One looks back at the story as to a world of brilliant figures in an atmosphere of mist; shapes that burn their colours into the brain, and depart into enveloping fog. This novel is the unformed writing of a giant’s hand; the large utterance of a baby god.

Allott, Miriam (ed). The Brontës: The Critical Heritage. London: Routledge, 1974.



And this is also spot on and wonderful, thank you for posting :)


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IsabellaLinton
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18 Oct 2019, 8:56 am

Excerpts from a review of Wuthering Heights, by Virginia Woolf (1916)

-Wuthering Heights is a more difficult book to understand than Jane Eyre, because Emily was a greater poet than Charlotte. When Charlotte wrote she said with eloquence and splendour and passion 'I love', 'I hate', 'I suffer'. Her experience, though more intense, is on a level with our own. But there is no 'I' in Wuthering Heights. There are no governesses and no employers. Emily was inspired by a more general conception. She looked out upon a world cleft in gigantic disorder and felt within her the power to unite it through the mouths of her characters - not merely 'I love' or 'I hate', but 'we, the whole human race...', and 'you, the eternal powers ...'; these sentences remain unfinished.

-It is this suggestion of power underlying the apparitions of human nature and lifting them up into the presence of greatness that gives the book its huge stature among other novels.

-It is as if she could tear up all that we know human beings by, and fill these unrecognisable transparencies with such a gust of life that they transcend reality. Hers, then, is the rarest of all powers. She could free life from its dependence on facts; with a few touches indicate the spirit of a face so that it needs no body; by speaking of the moor make its wind blow and the thunder roar.

:skull:



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19 Oct 2019, 7:18 pm

"We ran out of beer, and I had to sh*t."

Charles Bukowski - Tales Of Ordinary Madness.


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06 Nov 2019, 9:28 am

"Every locked door has a key. Every problem has a solution."



IsabellaLinton
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04 Feb 2020, 2:10 am

Oh, for the time when I shall sleep
Without identity,
And never care how rain may steep,
Or snow may cover me!
No promised heaven these wild desires
Could all, or half, fulfil;
No threatened hell, with quenchless fires,
Subdue this quenchless will!

So said I, and still say the same;
Still, to my death, will say—
Three gods within this little frame
Are warring night and day:
Heaven could not hold them all, and yet
They all are held in me;
And must be mine till I forget
My present entity!

Oh, for the time when in my breast
Their struggles will be o'er!
Oh, for the day when I shall rest,
And never suffer more!


Emily Brontë
3 February 1845



traven
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06 Feb 2020, 3:21 am

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08 Feb 2020, 9:39 am

“Have been unavoidably detained by the world. Expect us when you see us.”



IsabellaLinton
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03 Mar 2020, 11:13 am

Cold in the earth—and the deep snow piled above thee,
Far, far removed, cold in the dreary grave!
Have I forgot, my only Love, to love thee,
Severed at last by Time's all-severing wave?

Now, when alone, do my thoughts no longer hover
Over the mountains, on that northern shore,
Resting their wings where heath and fern-leaves cover
Thy noble heart forever, ever more?

Cold in the earth—and fifteen wild Decembers,
From those brown hills, have melted into spring:
Faithful, indeed, is the spirit that remembers
After such years of change and suffering!

Sweet Love of youth, forgive, if I forget thee,
While the world's tide is bearing me along;
Other desires and other hopes beset me,
Hopes which obscure but cannot do thee wrong!

No later light has lit my heaven,
No second morn has shone for me;
All my life's bliss from thy dear life was given,
All my life's bliss is in the grave with thee.

But, when the days of golden dreams had perished,
And even Despair was powerless to destroy,
Then did I learn how existence could be cherished,
Strengthened, and fed without the aid of joy.

Then did I check the tears of useless passion—
Weaned my young soul from yearning after thine;
Sternly denied its burning wish to hasten
Down to that tomb already more than mine.

And, even yet, I dare not let it languish,
Dare not indulge in memory's rapturous pain;
Once drinking deep of that divinest anguish,
How could I seek the empty world again?


Remembrance
Emily Jane Brontë
3 March 1845



IsabellaLinton
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18 Mar 2020, 12:18 pm

Thy spirit animates eternal years
Pervades and broods above,
Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates and rears





From "No Coward Soul is Mine"
Emily Brontë, 1846



IsabellaLinton
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31 Mar 2020, 1:48 pm

31st March 1855

Arthur Bell Nicholls wrote to Ellen Nussey; 'Our dear Charlotte is no more - She died last night of exhaustion...'

Ellen arriving the next day later recalled; 'Her maid Martha brought me a tray of evergreens and such flowers as she could procure to place on the lifeless form. What made it impossible at first was the rushing recollection of the flowers I had spread in her honour at her wedding, just nine months before'.

Rest in peace Charlotte Brontë, and my grandmother Kathleen who also passed on this date.


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31 Mar 2020, 3:41 pm

In -7,980, the first orbital flights were made by the air force of eastern Dleqiats, followed quickly by flights from Qiknavra.  By -7,959 the first expedition to Viepchakl was mounted by eastern Dleqiats, and a base was permanently on the moon by -7,950.

In some ways, the exploration of Viepchakl was a replay of the exploration of Qiknavra.  There were Chirpers already there.

These Chirpers (called Viepchaklts -- people of Viepchakl) were the remnants of the Droyne who had inhabited Viepchakl City and somehow survived in the underground tunnels.  Some were in cold sleep for thousands of years, while others simply wandered the tunnels, tending hydroponics troughs, or eating from automated food producers.

Initially, it was human astronauts from eastern Dleqiats that contacted the Viepchaklts, but within a year, Qiknavra has launched its own expedition, one which included Chirpers.

The Chirpers from each world met in the depths of the ruined Viepchakl City, and within a few days the Qiknavra Chirpers fell ill and died.  Reacting quickly, the humans determined that the cause was a bacteriological weapon lying dormant since the Final War.  An agent specific to Qiknavrats was carried by the Viepchaklts; and an agent specific to the Viepchaklts was carried by the Qiknavrats.  When they met, the biological agents went to work.  Although an immediate quarantine was ordered, samples from Viepchaklts had already been sent to Zhdant (months before) and it was only a matter of time before the plague spread to Qiknavrats.  Apparently, biological agents specific to each type of Droyne were drop-launched during the Final War, but each went to the wrong world; they then waited as a bacteriological time bomb-waiting for the two branches of the same race to make contact.

The plague also affected humans.  On Viepchakl, most humans died within two weeks.  Within a year, the plague's first effects were being felt on humans on Zhdant.  Within two years, the human population was reduced by a third.  Within ten years, population had been reduced by two-thirds.  The human die-back ruined many of the gains of the past centuries.  Vast areas of the plains of eastern Dleqiats were abandoned, as were the Qiknavrats settlements in Qiknavra.  Cities were abandoned.  Attention turned to survival.  By -7,940, Zhdant had entered a second Dark Age.


-- "Exploration of Viepchakl" by J. Andrew Keith, Marc W. Miller, and John Harshman (pub. 1985)



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18 Apr 2020, 4:27 pm

"'Yes, said Victor uncertainly. 'But how does it work?'
Silverfish's face lit up.
'You want to know?' he said. 'You want to know how things work?'
'Yes, I-"
'You see, most people are so disappointing,' Silverfish said. 'You show them something really wonderful like the picture box, and they just go "oh".'"

("Moving Pictures", Terry Pratchett)


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IsabellaLinton
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21 Apr 2020, 7:48 pm

Image :heart: :heart: :heart:



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26 Apr 2020, 5:37 pm

"Names for children, domestic animals, servants, pet animals such as dogs, cats, and rabbits, farm animals such as horses, cows, donkeys, racing animals such as horses and greyhounds, houses, businesses, and boats all reflect the value of society. Medieval Britons named their cups and swords, but cups and swords no longer hold social value and are no longer named. Names are initiated by the bestower, and uptaken and interpreted by everyone else."



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30 Apr 2020, 7:31 pm

"The way blood typing works is this: All blood cells are the same inside, but the outsides are covered with different kinds of antigens -- that is, proteins that project outward from the cell surface -- and that is what accounts for blood types."


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