Quotes
found by
Mikhail
Nesterenko

I jumped away from Harb when I heard Tamam's knock on the door.

"My son," she said, "let me hold my head high for the rest of my life. Show the whole tribe that you are the pride of Qasim."

Harb put his head in his hands. He had lost interest in my body. "I won't be able to do it if they keep knocking on the door."
I held him tight. I kissed his damp forehead, his eyes, his nose, his mouth. I could hear the galloping of horses and the shooting in the air. The young men of the tribe were getting restless. Harb lay on the floor, closed his eyes, and stretched his legs. I felt that I had to do something to help him. I did not know what exactly. I lay next to him and held his head between my breasts. He began to breath evenly and reached out for my legs again. His face was covered with sweat, and his arms were shaking.

"It is all right," I said, "it's all right."
"Yes," he said then kissed my parted lips.

A fierce knock on the door stopped Harb dead in his tracks. He stood up and kicked the wall with his foot.

"Come on, son," she hissed, "the whole tribe is waiting. Shame in my old age is also waiting."

Harb was in tears when he said, "Maha, I cannot do it."

I was thinking of my honor. I was a virgin: I had the blood in me, but Harb was the one to spill it. Harb was the one who was supposed to prove that I was a virgin. What if they were never given the sheet with blood on it? They will think I had no honor. The shame of it will kill my father. "They will not leave us alone until we hand them a piece of white cloth dripping with blood. If we don't get that piece they will think I am not a virgin. My family's name will be tarnished. Forever."

Harb's face was pale when he said with difficulty, "Maha, I cannot do it."

I suddenly smiled and said, "We can fool them."
"That's impossible!" he sighed.
"Prick my little finger with the end of your dagger..."
"No, I will not."
"It is my blood they are after."
"I just cannot hurt you on our wedding night."

I snatched the dagger and nicked the tip of my finger in order not to bleed too much. While wiping the blood I saw tears captured in my husband's eyes. He kissed my hand and said that he didn't want me to suffer, that he loved every part of me, even my little finger.

"Give them the proof of my chastity. Quickly."
With a shaking hand he held the cloth then thrust it out of the door. He was supposed to be naked. I giggled.

The whole tribe went mad when they saw my virgin blood. They would stick the cloth to a rifle barrel, ride their horses, and shoot some bullets in the air. Another woman of their tribe had proven to be sealed, and had now been opened. The honey in its jar was safe; I was pure.

[Abdallah ibn Sad was the secretary who had been taking down the revelations at Mohammed's dictation and who had been seized with doubts when, after writing his own words in the style of the Koran, the Prophet had not noticed the interpolation] ... Abdallah later reached high office in the Muslim empire. He had realized that truth is powerless in the face of myths, when these have history and strength on their side. There was more to be gained from making the best of it.

"... After watching the ferocity of their air strikes and tank fire for more than a week, we had half expected to see giants, but of course the Israelis were, like most off-duty soldiers, instantaneously generous, politically naive and just a little puzzled by their complex and bloody campaign in Lebanon."

"... They walked up to our car with brand-new rocket-propelled grenades in their hands, the projectiles still in grease-proof paper with Russian writing on the outside. 'Do you want to come with us and fight the Israelis?' one of them asked. J-C beamed back. 'Not today. We can't.' He looked at his watch. 'We are reporters, we have to work.' The gunman smiled in a beneficent way, like a preacher at a laying-on of hands. 'Come with us,' he said. 'We will meet later in Paradise.'

We drove away. J-C turned to me. 'You want to go to Paradise?' No. 'You can always change your mind and we can turn back.' No. 'Are you sure?' Yes."

"Fawzieh Saad, ... ran out of the neighboring building. 'It was a horrible sight,' she said. '... There was a woman who was pregnant and I could see the arm and leg of her unborn baby poking out of her stomach. There was a man who had shrapnel in his head. He was not dead but you could see a piece of metal in his neck, like he'd had his throat cut. He told his daughter to come to help him and lift him up. And I heard her say: "Wait a minute, I'm trying to put my brother together - he's in two pieces..."'"

[Dean meets another girl]
... I saw a girl called Inez ... Dean came bashfully over. An hour later, in the drunkenness and chichiness of the party ... he was kneeling on the floor with his chin on her belly and telling her and promising her everything and sweating. She was a big sexy brunette -- as Garcia said, "Something straight out of Degas," and generally like a beautiful Parisian coquette. In a matter of days they were dickering with Camille in San Francisco by longdistance telephone for the necessary divorce papers so they could get married. Not only that, but a few months later Camille gave birth to Dean's second baby, the result of a few nights' rapport early in the year. And another matter of months and Inez had a baby.

"... Dean bought a car and is coming out to join you." ... I knew Dean had gone mad again. There was no chance to send money to either wife if he took all his savings out of the bank and bought a car. Everything was up, the jig and all. Behind him charred ruins smoked. He rushed westward over the groaning and awful continent again, and soon he would arrive. We made hasty preparations for Dean. News was that he was going to drive me to Mexico.

I am a free man - and I need my freedom. I need to be alone. I need to ponder my shame and my despair in seclusion; I need sunshine and the paving stones of the streets without companions, without conversations, face to face with myself, with only the music of my heart for company. What do you want of me? When I have something to say, I put it in print. When I have something to give, I give it. Your prying curiosity turns my stomach! You compliments humiliate me! Your tea poisons me! I owe nothing to any one. I would be responsible to God alone -- if He existed!

One can live without friends, one can live without love, or even without money, the supposed sine qua non. One can live in Paris -- I discovered that! -- on just grief and anguish. A bitter nourishment -- perhaps the best there is for certain people.

The cradles of civilization are the putrid sinks of the world, the charnel house to which the stinking wombs confide their bloody packages of flesh and bone.

It is that sort of cruelty which is embedded in the streets; is _that_ which stares out from the walls and terrifies us when suddenly we respond to a nameless fear, when suddenly our souls are invaded by a sickening panic. It is _that_ which gives the lampposts their ghoulish twists, which makes them beckon to us and lure us to their strangling grip; it is _that_ which makes certain houses appear like the guardians of secret crimes and their bind windows like the empty sockets of eyes that have seen too much.

It may be that we are doomed, that there is no hope for us, _any of us_, but if that is so then let us set up a last agonizing, bloodcurdling howl, a screech of defiance, a war whoop! Away with lamentation! Away with elegies and dirges! Away with biographies and histories, and libraries and museums! Let the dead eat the dead. Let us living ones dance about the rim of the crater, a last expiring dance. But a dance!

[description of hypnopomping (after sleep) hallucinations] ... the hallucinations are becoming worse. Now about four a night. I am terrified about going to bed. The following are some examples of what I see. A huge figure of an angel standing over me next to a figure of death in black. A rotting corpse laying next to me. A huge crocodile at my throat. A dead baby on the floor covered in blood. Hideous faces laughing at me. Giant spiders, very frequent. Huge hand over my face. Also one on the floor, five feet across. Drifting spider webs. Birds and insects flying into my face. Two faces looking at me from under a rock. Image of myself, only looking older, standing by the bed in a suit. Two rats eating a potato. A mass of different colored flags descending onto me. Ugly looking primitive man lying on the floor covered in tufts of orange hair. Shards of glass falling on me. Two wire lobster pods. Dots of red, increasing to thousands like spattered blood. Masses of logs falling on me.

`I hope I never see you again,' she said.
`I quite understand,' I replied.

Dogs tore babies... We'd sit down over a baby torn apart and wait, until its heart stops ... Then cover it with snow .. That's its grave till spring...

Anyone who didn't like to travel wasn't invited on our adventure, Dad said. He stopped the car, grabbed Quixote [the cat] by the scruff of the neck, and tossed him out of the window. Quixote landed with a screeching meow and a thud, Dad acceleratd up the road, and I burst into tears.

"Don't be so sentimental," Mom said. She told me we could always get another cat, and now Quixote was going to be a wild cat, which was much more fun than being a house cat.

Ну и засыхайте на корню, чистоплюйки! А я все равно выйду за него, что бы вы ни говорили! Да, он играет в подкидного дурака, да, он говорит "мое фамилие" А я кончила иняз по скандинавским языкам. Только кому они теперь нужны, мои скандинавские! Устала я. Хочу свою хату и свою печку. И своих детей. Новых. Ведь тех, материковских, больше никогда не увидим. Так рожать скорей, пока еще могу. (You can wither on the vine, you sissies! I'll marry him regardless of what you say! Yes, he plays cards. Yes, he speaks like a country bumpkin. And I have graduated from college with a degree in Scandinavian languages. But who cares now about my languages! I am tired. I want my own hut and my own stove. And my own children. New ones. We shall never see those on the continent again. So, let me bear new ones, quickly, while I still can.)

Уж не оттого ли люди истязают детей, а иногда и больших, что их так трудно воспитывать а сечь так легко? (Maybe children, and even adults, are tormented so because it is so difficult to educate them but so easy to whip?)

That has always been man's greatest tragedy, hasn't it? It's not the doubting of God's intentions, or even of His existence, that really tears apart our souls. It's that we honestly believe we'd do a better job than Him if granted the opportunity.

Sometimes I felt like humanity was the stillborn carcass of what we were supposed to be. Other times I wasn't even sure we had made it to the womb.