Bokelskere.no

Senere så jeg en politibetjent knæle og kysse fødderne af en præst, og jeg fik pludselig kvalme og måtte næsten brække mig.

I likhet med folk flest, antagelig, hoppet jeg over kapitlene om de religiøse pliktene, om islams søyler og fasten, for å komme rett til kapittel 7: «Hvorfor polygami?»

Hele den intellektuelle debatten i det 20. århundre kan oppsummeres som en strid mellom kommunismen, som vi kan kalle hardcore-versjonen av humanismen, og det liberale demokratiet, som er den softe varianten; det var tross alt veldig innskrenkende. Det religiøses tilbakekomst, som vi bare så vidt har begynt å snakke om, var noe jeg for min egen del visste var uunngåelig allerede da jeg var femten år, tror jeg.

Why do you think they're crazy? asked John Grady.
Why do I think or why are they?
Why are they.
They're just made that way. A horse has got two brains. He dont see the same thing out of both eyes at once. He's got a eye for each side.
So does a fish, said Troy.
Well. That's true.
So does a fish have two brains?
I dont know. I dont know that a fish has got any brains at all to speak of.
Maybe a fish just aint smart enough to be crazy.
I think you got a point. A horse aint really all that dumb.
They're too dumb to shade up and a dumb-assed cow will do that.
So will a fish. Or a rattlesnake for that matter.
You think a snake is dumber than a fish?
Hell, Troy, I dont know. Who in the hell would know such a thing? They're both dumbern hell in my opinion.

The eyes dried and wrinkled and the cords they hung by dried and the world vanished and he slept at last and dreamt of the country through which he'd ridden in his campaigns in the mountains and the brightly colored birds thereof and the wildflowers and he dreamt of young girls barefoot by the roadside in the mountain towns whose own eyes were pools of promise deep and dark as the world itself and over all the taut blue sky of Mexico where the future of man stood dress rehearsal daily and the figure of death in his paper skull and suit painted bones strode up and back before the footlights in high declamation.

You reckon the horses know where we're at? Boyd said.
What do you mean?
He looked up from the fire. I mean do you reckon they know where we're at.
What the hell kind of question is that?
Well. I reckon it's a question about horses and what they know about where they're at.

East and to the south there was water on the flats and two sandhill cranes stood tethered to their reflections out there in the last of the day's light like statues of such birds in some waste of a garden where calamity had swept all else away.

Every night, there's always some chick out there who'll yell, “We love you, Michael,” or “I love you, Boz,” and once in a while I'll get one of those too. But usually, with me, because of the “musicians' musician” thing and various other disqualifiers, it'll be some poor dude yelling “DONNNNALD” in a crazy, tortured voice.

Mike [McDonald], Boz [Scaggs] and I are pretty old now and so is most of our audience. Tonight, though, the crowd looked so geriatric I was tempted to start calling out bingo numbers.

Mainly, I've been lying in bed and thinking about cigarettes. I quit a couple of months ago and I do feel better except that it's like I'm always waiting for some square-ass civilian to finish a boring dinner story so I can go outside and have a cigarette, and that square-ass civilian is now me.

There are countless definitions of the word “hipster”. In the title of this book, I'm using it to refer to artists whose origins lie outside the mainstream or creatively exploit material from the margin or who, merely because they live in a freaky space, have enough distance to see some truth.

The Internet, which at first seemed so fascinating, appears to be evolving into something worse than TV, but we'll see.

'I like heroin, cocaine, nice houses, good furniture, and pretty girls,' said Alexander, 'and I've had all of them in large quantities. But you know, they never made me happy.'
'My word, you're hard to please, aren't you?'

Fergus took me to the coast and forced me to go snorkeling. All I can say is that the Great Barrier Reef is the most vulgar thing I've ever seen. It's one's worst nightmare, full of frightful loud colours, peacock blues, and impossible oranges all higgledy-piggledy while one's mask floods.

The Vicar (looking down soothingly from the pulpit): 'Some of us remember David Melrose as a paedophile, an alcoholic, a liar, a rapist, a sadist, and a "thoroughly nasty piece of work". But, you know, in a situation like that, what Christ asks us to say, and what he would have said himself in his own words is' (pausing) '"But that's not the whole story, is it?"'

Honest John: 'Yes, it is.'

I may be a frightful reactionary, but I think that all you have to do for children is hire a reasonable nanny and put them down for Eton.

During lunch David felt that he had perhaps pushed his disdain for middle-class prudery a little too far. Even at the bar of the Cavalry and Guards Club one couldn't boast about homosexual, paedophiliac incest with any confidence of a favourable reception.

Had Vijay's character been more attractive his appearance might have elicited pity or even indifference, but spending just a few days with him convinced Anne that each hideous feature had been moulded by internal malevolence. His wide, grinning mouth was at once crude and cruel. When he tried to smile, his purplish lips could only curl and twist like a rotting leaf thrown onto a fire.

There had been a time when she admired the way that David became a doctor. When he had told his father of his intention, General Melrose had immediately cut of his annuity, preferring to use the money to rear pheasants. Shooting men and animals were the occupations of a gentleman, tending their wounds the business of middle-class quacks.

It was never quite clear to Eleanor why the English thought it was distinguished to have done nothing for a long time in the same place, but David left her in no doubt that they did. He also descended from Charles II through a prostitute.