incoherent ramblings

Childermass replied that the house was larger than most.
“Indeed?” said Mr. Norrell, much surprized. Mr. Norrell was particularly shocked by the smallness of the library, which could not be made to accommodate one third of the books he considered indispensable; he asked Childermass how people in London housed their books? Perhaps they did not read?

—Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Susanna Clarke

I wrote her college application essays, and she did my phone interviews. I called her immediately prior to taking my SATs, flying across the Atlantic, and losing my virginity. I have called from the post office, the grocery story, the DMV, the parkway toll plaza, elevators, cabs, the bathroom of the boy with the smallest penis I’ve ever seen. I do not know how to need her any less than I do.

—Smart Girls Like Me, Diana Vadino

Dad always said a person must have a magnificent reason for writing out his or her Life Story and expecting anyone to read it.
“Unless your name is something along the lines of Mozart, Matisse, Churchill, Che Guevara or Bond - James Bond - you best spend your free time finger painting or playing shuffleboard, for no one, with the exception of your flabby-armed mother with stiff hair and a mashed-potato way of looking at you, will want to hear the particulars of your pitiable existence, which doubtlessly will end as it began - with a wheeze.

—Special Topics in Calamity Physics, Marisha Pessl

Or maybe you were at a real-life party that bored you and you saw someone tilt their head back and laugh in a way that just killed you, and then that was that.

—Marshall Sella, Gentlemen’s Quarterly, Oct. 2011