"The Marriage Plot"

[fiefoe]

A break from the love triangle:

• If there were such a thing as inspiration from a higher realm, it might well be that the neurotic temperament would furnish the chief condition of the requisite receptivity.
• ... choked with feeling for these two human beings who, like figures from myth, had possessed the ability throughout his life to blend into the background, to turn to stone or wood, only to come alive again, at key moments like this, to witness his hero’s journey.
• Larry, only fifteen at the time, had ferried champagne splits and graham crackers to the ballerina’s bedside, where Kolnoskova alternately wept, watched game shows, or coaxed him to massage her young, spectacularly deformed feet.
• She ran her hand through it, tucking a portion behind her right ear. This seemed to make her face once again available for emotion.
• The French ideal wasn’t clearly delineated like the neatness and greenness of American lawns, but more of a picturesque disrepair. It took courage to let things fall apart so beautifully.
• That he had foreseen this moment but hadn’t managed to prevent it seemed only, as he turned toward Avenue Rapp, to confirm his basic stupidity. It was the stupidity of an intelligent person, but stupidity nonetheless.
• “Listen, a girl’s not a watermelon you plug a hole in to see if it’s sweet.”
• The movement had become less pragmatic and more theoretical. Male oppression of women wasn’t just a matter of certain deeds but of an entire way of seeing and thinking.
• ...while, outside, the sea of faith retreated “down the vast edges drear and naked shingles of the world.”
• “Please,” Rüdiger said dismissively. “Let’s not try to understand each other by autobiography.”
• Let’s just say that during my travels I’ve become acquainted with interior states that collapse the distance between people.
• the singular victory for humanity a great city represented,

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