"The Little Disturbances of Man"

[fiefoe]

'The Contest'

• Summer or winter, the shade of trees or their hard shadow
• Her mother must have told her what to say. She said it with such imprisoned precision.
• me, her prize possession and the best piece of meat in the freezer of her heart
• full of smiles and corrupt with pride
• The pure unmentionable fact is that women isolate you. There was no one to call.
• You gave me the swamp waters of your affection to drown in

'An Interest in Life'

• every burnt-up day of my life smoked in shame, and I couldn't even get a clear view of the good half hours.
• A woman counts her children and acts snotty, like she invented life, but men must do well in the world. I know that men are not fooled by being happy.
• it was like trying to move back into the dry mouth of a nightmare.
• He begins to see her through the other man's eyes, a sitting duck, a skinfull of flaws.
• All that is really necessary for survival of the fittest, it seems, is an interest in life, good, bad, or peculiar.

'An Irrevocable Diameter'

• her chest, which was relatively new, covered by dacron and Egyptian cotton, and waiting to be popular.
• All the exaggerated bones of childhood and old age were bedded down in a cozy consistency of girl.
• I asked myself, did I, as God's creature under the stars, have the right to evade an event, a factual occurrence, to parry an experience or even a small peradventure?
• I was so silent that even now I am breathless with self-respect.
• In five or six years,.. she might marry some contributing citizen and resign her light habits to him.

'Two Short Sad Stories from a Long and Happy Life'

__ Jews have one hope only.. a splinter in the toe of civilization, a victim to aggravate the conscience.
__ I am only trying to say that (the Jews) aren't meant for geographies but for history. They are not supposed to take up space but to continue in time.
__ my ego is hot; I am a star;.. The flat scale stones of abuse that fly into that speedy atmosphere are utterly consumed. Untouched, I glow my little thermodynamic way.

'In Time Which Made a Monkey of Us All' / The Floating Truth'
__ The beginning of everything is damp and small.
__ They swilled Coke like a regiment which has captured all the enemy pinball machines without registering a single tilt.
__ "Don't' put yourself on a platter. What are you - a roast duck, everything removable with a lousy piece of flatware? Be secret. Turn over on your side. Let them guess if you're stuffed."