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“Indeed, a faint hypnopædic prejudice in favour of size was universal. Hence the laughter of the women to whom he made proposals, the practical joking of his equals among the men. The mockery made him feel an outsider; and feeling an outsider he behaved like one, which increased the prejudice against him and intensified the contempt and hostility aroused by his physical defects. Which in turn increased his sense of being alien and alone. A chronic fear of being slighted made him avoid his equals, made him stand, where his inferiors were concerned, self-consciously on his dignity.”
― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

“One hundred and seventy years later, readers had to contend with Socrates's pronouncement that books are useless artifacts. Literary works cannot explain what they say, the great philosopher argued â€� they can only repeat the same words over and over. To me this sounds less like the definition of a book than a Heideggerian, but in any event Socrates clearly missed the point. Books don't repeat the same words over and over again. The Gulliver's Travels whose whimsy amused you at twelve is not the Gulliver's Travels whose acid engaged you at thirty.”
― James K. Morrow, The Last Witchfinder

“People were standing up everywhere shouting, "This is me! This is me!" Every time you looked at them they stood up and told you who they were, and the truth of it was that they had no more idea who or what they were than he had. They believed their flashing signs, too. They ought to be standing up and shouting, "This isn't me! This isn't me!" They would if they had any decency. "This isn't me!" Then you might know how to proceed through the flashing bullshit of this world.”
― Philip Roth, American Pastoral

“Do you also believe that what gives our lives their meaning is the passion that suddenly invades us heart, soul, and body, and burns in us forever, no matter what else happens in our lives? And that if we have experienced this much, then perhaps we haven’t lived in vain? Is passion so deep and terrible and magnificent and inhuman? Is it indeed about desiring any one person, or is it about desiring desire itself? That is the question. Or perhaps, is it indeed about desiring a particular person, a single, mysterious other, once and for always, no matter whether that person is good or bad, and the intensity of our feelings bears no relation to that individual’s qualities or behavior?”
― Sándor Márai, Embers