Control Freak - aNobii

Books (265)

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- Canto di Natale (6673)
- By Charles Dickens
- Finished on Apr 5, 2010
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- Racconti (1769)
- By Anton Chekhov
- Finished on Apr 29, 2010
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- I Capture the Castle (153)
- By Dodie Smith
- Finished on Mar 15, 2010
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- Andromeda Klein (4)
- By Frank Portman
- Not Started
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- White Teeth (653)
- By Zadie Smith
- Finished on Feb 14, 2010
  
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White Teeth

"If someone asked her just then what memory was, what the purest definition of memory was, she would say this: the street you were on when you first jumped in a pile of dead leaves."
"By Allah, how thankful he is (yes, madam, one moment, madam), how gladdened by the thou ... (continue)

"If someone asked her just then what memory was, what the purest definition of memory was, she would say this: the street you were on when you first jumped in a pile of dead leaves."
"By Allah, how thankful he is (yes, madam, one moment, madam), how gladdened by the thought that Magid, Magid at least, will, in a matter of four hours, be flying east from this place and its demands, its constant cravings, this place where there exists neither patience nor pity, where the people want what they want now, right now (We've been waiting twenty minutes for the vegetables), expecting their lovers, their children, their friends and their gods to arrive at little cost and in little time, just as table ten expect their tandoori prawns..."
"Oh, there was a certain pleasure. And don't ever underestimate people, don't ever underestimate the pleasure they receive from viewing pain that is not their own, from delivering bad news, watching bombs fall on television, from listening to stifled sobs from the other end of a telephone line. Pain by itself is just Pain. But Pain + Distance can = entertainment, voyeurism, human interest, cinéma vérité, a good belly chuckle, a sympathetic smile, a raised eyebrow, disguised contempt."
"No, Joyce, love's not the fucking reason. [...] It's a four-letter word that sells life insurance and hair conditioner."
"What made us think that anyone who fails to love us is damaged, lacking, malfunctioning in some way? And particularly if they replace us with a god, or a weeping madonna, or the face of Christ in a ciabatta roll - then we call them crazy. Deluded. Regressive. We are so convinced of the goodness of ourselves and the goodness of our love, that we cannot bear to believe that there might be something more worthy of love than us, more worthy of worship. Greeting cards routinely tell us everybody deserves love. No. Everybody deserves clean water. Not everybody deserves love all the time."

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— Feb 14, 2010 | Add your feedback

- Middlesex (1219)
- By Jeffrey Eugenides
- Finished on Jan 6, 2010
  
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Middlesex

"Out in these streets people were embroiled in a thousand matters, money problems, love problems, school problems. People were falling in love, getting married, going to drug rehab, learning how to ice-skate, getting bifocals, studying for exams, trying on clothes, getting their hair cut, and gettin ... (continue)

"Out in these streets people were embroiled in a thousand matters, money problems, love problems, school problems. People were falling in love, getting married, going to drug rehab, learning how to ice-skate, getting bifocals, studying for exams, trying on clothes, getting their hair cut, and getting born. And in some houses people were getting old and sick and were dying, leaving others to grieve. It was happening all the time, unnoticed, and it was the thing that really mattered. What really mattered, in life, what gave it weight, was death."

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— Jan 8, 2010 | Add your feedback
- La masseria delle allodole (3007)
- By Antonia Arslan
- Finished on Nov 17, 2009
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- Neve (3895)
- By Maxence Fermine
- Finished on Oct 20, 2009
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- L'idiota (10855)
- By Fedor M. Dostoevskij
- Finished on Oct 18, 2009
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- The Complete Maus (296)
- Finished on Aug 29, 2009
  
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The Complete Maus

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"But it wasn't the BEST people who survived, nor did the best ones die. It was RANDOM."

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— Aug 30, 2009 | Add your feedback

- Slam (565)
- By Nick Hornby
- Finished on Aug 23, 2009
  
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Slam

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"Where did it go? It was like there had been a lot of food on a plate in front of us, and we ate it really quickly, and then there was nothing left. Maybe that's how couples stay together: they're not greedy. They know that what they have in front of them had to last a long time, so they kind of pic ... (continue)

"Where did it go? It was like there had been a lot of food on a plate in front of us, and we ate it really quickly, and then there was nothing left. Maybe that's how couples stay together: they're not greedy. They know that what they have in front of them had to last a long time, so they kind of pick at it. I hope it's not like that, though. I hope that when people are happy together, it feels as though someone keeps piling seconds and thirds on their plates."
"Anyway, all I'm saying is that there was this time - maybe it was a day, maybe a few days, I cant' remember now - when everything seemed to have come together. And so obviously it was time to go and screw it all up."
"Sometimes you know you will remember moments for ever, even if there's nothing much happening."

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— Aug 25, 2009 | Add your feedback
- Non ti muovere (17360)
- By Margaret Mazzantini
- Finished in Jul 2009
  
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Non ti muovere

"... la vita è questa. Attimi superbi di vicinanza e poi gelide folate di vento. E se tu soffri laggiù, oltre l'ultimo faraglione di cemento, la tua sofferenza mi è ignota in questa distanza, ed estranea".
"Dio non ci perdonerà."
[...]
"Dio non esiste!" sibilai stringendole le mani g ... (continue)

"... la vita è questa. Attimi superbi di vicinanza e poi gelide folate di vento. E se tu soffri laggiù, oltre l'ultimo faraglione di cemento, la tua sofferenza mi è ignota in questa distanza, ed estranea".
"Dio non ci perdonerà."
[...]
"Dio non esiste!" sibilai stringendole le mani ghiacce.
Lei mi guardò e forse rise di me. Scrollò le spalle: "Speriamo."
"una giornata qualunque, figlia mia, davvero niente di che. Ma quello fu il viaggio più bello della mi vita. Se ripenso alla mia vita, se penso a un premio, rivedo quel viaggio. [...] Una felicità fatta di nulla, insperata e profonda".

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— Aug 2, 2009 | Add your feedback
- How to be Good (911)
- By Nick Hornby
- Finished in Jul 2009
  
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How to be Good

"Cynicism is our shared common language, the Esperanto that actually caught on."
"Sometimes we have to be judged by our one-offs."
"We have a great belief, those of us who live in this income bracket and postal district, in the power of words: we read, we talk, we write, we have therapis ... (continue)

"Cynicism is our shared common language, the Esperanto that actually caught on."
"Sometimes we have to be judged by our one-offs."
"We have a great belief, those of us who live in this income bracket and postal district, in the power of words: we read, we talk, we write, we have therapists and counsellors and even priests who are happy to listen to us and tell us what to do."
"The only way to have a guilt-free relationship with one's parents is to talk to them and see them constantly, maybe even live with them. And that can't be good, can it? So if those are the choices - permanent guilt, or some kind of Freudian awfulness involving five phone calls a day - then I have made the sane and mature choice."
"Love, it turns out, is as undemocratic as money, so it accumulates around people who have plenty of it already: the sane, the healthy, the lovable."
"When you get in a mess like mine, your marriage is like a knife in your stomach, and you know that you're in big trouble whatever you decide. You don't ask people with knives in their stomach what would make them happy; happiness is no longer the point. It's all about survival; it's all about whether you pull the knife out and bleed to death or keep it in, in the hope that you might be lucky, and the knife has actually been staunching the blood. You want to know the conventional medical wisdom? The conventional medical wisdom is that you keep the knife in. Really."
"What you don't ever catch a glimpse of on your wedding day - because how could you? - is that some days you will hate your spouse, that you will look at him and regret ever exchanging a word with him, let alone a ring or bodily fluids. Nor is it possible to foresee the desperation and depression, the sense that your life is over, the occasional urge to hit your whining children, even though hitting them is something you knew for a fact you would never ever do. And of course you don't think about having affairs, and when you get to that stage in life when you do (and everyone gets there sooner or later), you don't think of the sick feeling you get in your stomach when you're conducting them, their inherent unhappiness. [...] If anyone thought about any of these things, then no one would ever get married, of course they wouldn't; in fact, the impulse to marry would come from the same place as the impulse to drink a bottle of bleach, and those are the kinds of impulses we try to ignore rather than celebrate. So we can't afford to think about these things because getting married - or finding a partner whom we will want to spend our lives with and have children by - is on our agenda. It's something we know we will do one day, and if you take that away from us then we are left with promotions at work and the possibility of a winning lottery ticket, and it's not enough [...]."

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— Aug 2, 2009 | Add your feedback
- La nuova vita (597)
- By Orhan Pamuk
- Finished on Aug 15, 2009
  
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La nuova vita

"Poi mi misi a pensare e sentii che in realtà questo non era un momento perfetto, mancava qualcosa. Nel mio corpo c'era una nuova anima, davanti avevo una nuova vita, in tasca avevo un mucchio di soldi e in cielo brillavano nuove stelle e io, anima mia, mi sarei messo a cercare quello che mancava. ... (continue)

"Poi mi misi a pensare e sentii che in realtà questo non era un momento perfetto, mancava qualcosa. Nel mio corpo c'era una nuova anima, davanti avevo una nuova vita, in tasca avevo un mucchio di soldi e in cielo brillavano nuove stelle e io, anima mia, mi sarei messo a cercare quello che mancava.
Cos'era che rendeva incompleta la vita?"
"Le civiltà si fondano e si distruggono. E allora? Ci credi solo quando la tua è in espansione? E quando le cose vanno male prendi in mano la pistola come un ragazzino litigioso?"
"Quando un bambino piange gli si chiede: perchè piangi figliolo? Il bambino piange perchè da qualche parte dentro di lui c'è una profonda ferita che sanguina, ma al signore che gli fa la domanda dice di aver perso il temperino blu".

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— Aug 16, 2009 | Add your feedback