My Favorite Paragraphs

Olive Kitteridge  "And then the little plane climb higher and Olive saw spread out below them fields of bright and tender green in the morning sun, farther out the coast line, the ocean shiny and almost flat, tiny white wakes behind a few lobster boats --- then Olive felt something she had not expected to feel again: a sudden surging greediness for life. She leaned forward, peering out the window: sweet pale clouds, the sky as blue as your hat, the new green of the fields, the broad expanse of water ---- seen from up here it all appeared wondrous, amazing. She remembered what hope was, and this was it. That inner churning that moves you forward, plows you through life, the way the boats below plowed the shiny water, the way the plane was plowing forward to a place new, and where she was needed. She had been asked to be part of her son's life."  (Random House Trade Paperbacks, Page 202 and 203)

Cloud Cuckoo Land  'The fog thickens and the quality of the moonlight dims. Pigeons coo somewhere above the broken roof. She whispers a prayer to Saint Koralia, ties the sack, hauls it down the stairs, crawls through the scupper, down-climbs the wall, and drops into the boat without a word. Gaunt and shivering, Himerius rows them back to the harbor, and the charcoal in the brazier burns out, and the icy fog seems to cinch down around them like a trap. Beneath the archway into the Venetian quarter, there are no men-at-arms, and when they reach the house of the Italians, everything is dark. In the courtyard the fig tree stands glazed with ice, the geese nowhere to be seen. Boy and girl shiver against the wall and Ana wills the sun to rise." (Scribner, Page 230 Kindle version.)

Moloch or, This Gentile World "A pale finger of light invaded the room upstairs. They undressed in the tense silence, shy and oppressed by the heavy gloom in which the room seemed to float. In the dark nuptial loam which they had rediscovered their desires expanded and fructified. Scalding tears trickled down the white of his flesh and caressed him. They were her tears. They burned into the lymph and tissue of his organism until they were identified with the adulterous specters of forgotten loves ... " (Grove Press, 1992. Page 241.)

 Ironweed "When Francis opened the trunk lid the odor of lost time filled the attic air, a cloying reek of imprisoned flowers that unsettled the dust and fluttered the window shades. Francis felt drugged by the scent of the reconstituted past, and then stunned by his first look inside the trunk, for there, staring out from a photo, was his own face at age nineteen. The picture lay among rolled socks and a small American flag, a Washington Senators cap, a pile of newspaper clippings and other photos, all in a scatter on the trunk's tray. Francis stared up at himself from the bleachers in Chadwick Park on a day in 1899, his face unlined, his teeth all there, his collar open, his hair unruly in the afternoon's breeze. He lifted the picture for a closer look and saw himself among a group of men, tossing a baseball from bare right hand to gloved left hand. The flight of the ball had always made this photo mysterious to Francis, for the camera had caught the ball clutched in one...

 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea Captain Nemo is replying to a question from the narrator: "You like the sea, Captain?" "Yes, I love it! The seas is everything. It covers sever-tenths of the terrestrial globe. Its breath is pure and healthy, it is an immense desert, where man is never lonely, for he feels life stirring on all sides. The sea is only the embodiment of a supernatural and wonderful existence, It is nothing but love and emotions; it is the 'Living Infinite,' as one of your poets has said. In fact, professor, Nature manifests herself in it by her three kingdoms, mineral, vegetable and animal. The Seas is the vast reservoir of Nature. The globe began supreme tranquility. The seas does not belong to despots. Upon its surface men can still exercise unjust laws, fight, tear one another to pieces and be carried away with terrestrial horrors. But at thirty feet be low its level, their reign ceases, their influence is quenched, and their power disappears. Ah! si...

 Fight Club "And in the basement of the Armory Bar, Tyler Durden slips to the floor in a warm jumble. Tyler Durden, the great, who was perfect for one moment, and who said that a moment is the most you could ever expect from perfection." (Published by Henry Holt and Company, Inc. 1996. Page 201)