Doll's House Quotes

You have never loved me. You have only thought it pleasant to be in love with me.

For love is no part of the dreamworld. Love belongs to Desire, and Desire is always cruel.

You see, there are some people that one loves, and others that perhaps one would rather be with.

I must make up my mind which is right – society or I.

Helmer: I would gladly work night and day for you. Nora- bear sorrow and want for your sake. But no man would sacrifice his honor for the one he loves. Nora: It is a thing hundreds of thousands of women have done.

I believe that before all else I am a reasonable human being, just as you are--or, at all events, that I must try and become one.

HELMER: But this is disgraceful. Is this the way you neglect your most sacred duties? NORA: What do you consider is my most sacred duty? HELMER: Do I have to tell you that? Isn't it your duty to your husband and children? NORA: I have another duty, just as sacred. HELMER: You can't have. What duty do you mean? NORA: My duty to myself.

But no man would sacrifice his honor for the one he loves." "It is a thing hundreds of thousands of women have done.

The only reason people die, is because EVERYONE does it. You all just go along with it. It's RUBBISH, death. It's STUPID. I don't want nothing to do with it.

NORA: I must stand on my own two feet if I'm to get to know myself and the world outside. That's why I can't stay here with you any longer.

Mrs LINDE: When you've sold yourself once for the sake of others, you don't do it second time.

Love belongs to Desire. And Desire is always Cruel. -Old Man

It is an anxious, sometimes a dangerous thing to be a doll. Dolls cannot choose; they can only be chosen; they cannot 'do'; they can only be done by.

Fictions are merely frozen dreams, linked images with some semblance of structure. They are not to be trusted, no more than the people who create them.

With me you could have been another person.

I believe that before anything else I'm a human being -- just as much as you are... or at any rate I shall try to become one. I know quite well that most people would agree with you, Torvald, and that you have warrant for it in books; but I can't be satisfied any longer with what most people say, and with what's in books. I must think things out for myself and try to understand them.

It was a smooth silvery voice that matched her hair. It had a tiny tinkle in it, like bells in a doll's house. I thought that was silly as soon as I thought of it.

Eww," Jack said, and then giggled. "Yeah, and a Paris Hilton doll that had an optional brain."Aphrodite raised her brow at him. "Don't go all crazy. There are some things even Paris Hilton can't buy.

When I lost you, it was as if all the solid ground dissolved from under my feet. Look at me; I'm a half-drowned man now, hanging onto a wreck.

Our home has been nothing but a playroom. I have been your doll-wife, just as at home I was papa's doll-child; and here the children have been my dolls.

I'm also like a half-drowned woman on a wreck. No one to suffer with; no one to care for.

And Desire smiles, and forgets, for Desire is a creature of the moment.

Chantal is having a relationship with a sentence. Just one of those things. A chance meeting that grew into something important for the both of them.

There are people one loves and others one likes to talk to

I'll risk everything together with you.

We don't have a clue what's really going down, we just kid ourselves that we're in control of our lives while a paper's thickness away things that would drive us mad if we thought about them for too long play with us, and move us around from room to room, and put us away at night when they're tired, or bored.

Anyone who's sold herself for somebody else once isn't going to do it again.

War is being reminded that you are completely at the mercy of death at every moment, without the illusion that you are not. Without the distractions that make life worth living.

How can I hold you close enough?

I should say I am far more cleverer than any of the people who put me here. As a matter of fact, I could leave any time I wanted. It's only a doll house after all. Anyway, I don't mind. I like dolls. Particularly the live ones.

You arranged everything according to your own taste, and so I got the same tastes as you - or else I pretended to. I am really not quite sure which - I think sometimes the one and sometimes the other.

[Y]et, I wondered why Marshall did not at least attempt a kiss. In many ways, his treatment of me reminded me of the way I had behaved toward the doll that Mamma Mae had given me as a child. I favored it so that I had refused myself of the joy of playing with it, daring to love it only with my eyes. But in doing so, I had denied myself its very purpose.

[From below comes the noise of a door slamming.]

The Chelsea was like a doll’s house in the Twilight Zone, with a hundred rooms, each a small universe.

I am afraid, Torvald, I do not exactly know what religion is. ... When I am away from all this, and am alone, I will look into that matter too. I will see if what the clergyman said is true, or at all events if it is true for me.

Nora: It's true Torvald. When I lived at home with Papa, he used to tell me his opinion about everything, and so I had the same opinion. If I thought differently, I had to hide it from him, or he wouldn't have liked it. He called me his little doll, and he used to play with me just as I played with my dolls. Then I came to live in your house - Helmer: That's no way to talk about our marriage! Nora [undisturbed]: I mean when I passed out of Papa's hands into yours. You arranged everything to suit your own tastes, and so I came to have the same tastes as yours.. or I pretended to. I'm not quite sure which.. perhaps it was a bit of both -- sometimes one and sometimes the other. Now that I come to look at it, I've lived here like a pauper -- simply from hand to mouth. I've lived by performing tricks for you, Torvald. That was how you wanted it. You and Papa have committed a grievous sin against me: it's your fault that I've made nothing of my life.

Nora: Torvald, don't look at me like that! Torvald: Can't I look at my richest treasure? At all that beauty that's mine, mine alone-completely and utterly.

HELMER:—To forsake your home, your husband, and your children! You don’t consider what the world will say. NORA:—I can pay no heed to that. I only know what I must do. HELMER:—It is exasperating! Can you forsake your holiest duties in this world? NORA:—What do you call my holiest duties? HELMER:—Do you ask me that? Your duties to your husband and your children. NORA:—I have other duties equally sacred. HELMER:—Impossible! What duties do you mean? NORA:—My duties towards myself. HELMER:—Before all else you are a wife and a mother. NORA:—That I no longer believe. I think that before all else I am a human being, just as much as you are—or at least I will try to become one.

If there is a moral to this part of the story, and I distrust morals in the same way that I distrust beginnings, it is simply this: know that with which you deal.

However wretched I may feel, I want to prolong the agony as long as possible. All my patients are like that. And so are those who are morally diseased..

Our house is old, and noisy, and full. when we moved into it we had two children and about five thousand books; I expect that when we finally overflow and move out again we will have perhaps twenty children and easily half a million books; we also own assorted beds and tables and chairs and rocking horses and lamps and doll dresses and ship models and paint brushes and literally thousands of socks.

The beauty myth of the present is more insidious than any mystique of femininity yet: A century ago, Nora slammed the door of the doll's house; a generation ago, women turned their backs on the consumer heaven of the isolated multiapplianced home; but where women are trapped today, there is no door to slam. The contemporary ravages of the beauty backlash are destroying women physically and depleting us psychologically. If we are to free ourselves from the dead weight that has once again been made out of femaleness, it is not ballots or lobbyists or placards that women will need first; it is a new way to see.

From the sky, everything looked fake. The buildings were doll houses. The cars were Matchbox racers. People scuttled about, but they weren’t really people anymore. Their little lives meant absolutely nothing from this altitude.

There is another version of the tale. That is the tale the women tell each other, in their private language that the men-children are not taught, and that the old men are too wise to learn. And in that version of the tale perhaps things happened differently. But then, that is a women's tale, and it is never told to men.

The first thing I hate is called a Russian doll. It holds a smaller version of itself inside it, and another inside that and so on. How awful. They are prisoners. I imagine them all screaming in the dark, unable to move or speak. The doll’s face is broad and blankly smiling. It looks so happy to be holding its children captive.

Starling House makes me think of an underfed pet or a broken doll, a thing unloved by the person who promised to love it best.

As a young child I had Santa and Jesus all mixed up. I could identify Coke or Pepsi with just one sip, but I could not tell you for sure why they strapped Santa to a cross. Had he missed a house? Had a good little girl somewhere in the world not received the doll he’d promised her, making the father angry?” (p.3)

As a young child I had Santa and Jesus all mixed up. I could identify Coke or Pepsi with just one sip, but I could not tell you for sure why they strapped Santa to a cross. Had he missed a house? Had a good little girl somewhere in the world not received the doll he'd promised her, making the father angry?

Torvald: I would gladly work night and day for you, Nora--bear sorrow and want for your sake. But no man would sacrifice his honour for the one he loves. Nora: But hundreds of thousands of women have done!

There can be no freedom or beauty about a home life that depends on borrowing and debt.

Do you know what Freud said about dreams of flying? It means you're really dreaming about having sex." "Indeed? Tell me, then, what does it mean when you dream about having sex?

it was a tremendous pleasure to sit there working and earning money. It was like being a man.

The ties that bind a parent to a child can never be broken; however awful their relationship might be, those ties just are.

لن تفقدوني طويلاً، فالراحلون سرعان ما ينطوون في زوايا النسيان.

In the beginning… But of course we never see the beginning. We come in in the middle, after the lights have gone down, and try to make some sense of the story so far. Whisper to our neighbours “Who’s he? Who’s she? Have they met each other before?” We get by.

And so the house came to be haunted by the unspoken phrase: There must be more money! There must be more money! The children could hear it all the time though nobody said it aloud. They heard it at Christmas, when the expensive and splendid toys filled the nursery. Behind the shining modern rocking-horse, behind the smart doll's house, a voice would start whispering: "There must be more money! There must be more money!" And the children would stop playing, to listen for a moment. They would look into each other's eyes, to see if they had all heard. And each one saw in the eyes of the other two that they too had heard. "There must be more money! There must be more money!

It was love at first touch rather than at first sight, for I had met her several times before without experiencing any special emotions; but one night as I was seeing her home, something quaint she had said made me stoop with a laugh and lightly kiss her on the hair - and of course we all know of that blinding blast which is caused by merely picking up a small doll from the floor of a carefully abandoned house: the soldier involved hears nothing; for him it is but an ecstatic soundless and boundless expansion of what had been during his life a pinpoint of light in the dark center of his being. And really, the reason we think of death in celestial terms is that the visible firmament, especially at night (above our blacked-out Paris with the gaunt arches of its Boulevard Exelmans and the ceaseless Alpine gurgle of desolate latrines), is the most adequate and ever-present symbol of that vast silent explosion' The time, the place, the torture. Her fan, her gloves, her mask. I spent that night and many others getting it out of her bit by bit, but not getting it all. I was under the strange delusion that first I must find out every detail, reconstruct every minute, and only then decide whether I could bear it. But the limit of desired knowledge was unattainable, nor could I ever foretell the approximate point after which I might imagine myself satiated, because of course the denominator of every fraction of knowledge was potentially as infinite as the number of intervals between the fractions themselves.

The door was opening again. The seer does not like to dwell upon what he saw entering the room: he says it might be described as a frog - the size of a man - but it had scanty white hair about its head. It was busy about the truckle-beds, but not for long. The sound of cries - faint, as if coming out of a vast distance - but, even so, infinitely appalling, reached the ear. ("The Haunted Doll's House")

I doubt I'm any wiser than I was five hundred years back. I'm older. I've been up, and been down, and been up again. Have I learned aught? I've learned from my mistakes, but I've had more time to commit more mistakes.

Zar nije neobično dražesna? To je bilo mišljenje i čitavog društva. Ali užasno je tvrdoglavo - to slatko malo stvorenje.

For love is no part of the dreamworld. Love belongs to Desire, and Desire is always cruel

I must stand quite alone, if I am to understand myself and everything about me.

Life was small but good. (15)

What good would that ever do me if you were gone from this world, as you say? Not the slightest.

[Gospođa Linde:]Čovek mora da živi, gospodine doktore. [Rank:]Da, uobičajeno je shvatanje da je to tako neophodno.

love is not for everyone .There's a certain kind of courage in allowing yourself to fall.

When I was at home with papa, he told me his opinion about everything, and so I had the same opinions; and if I differed from him I concealed the fact, because he would not have liked it. He called me his doll-child, and he played with me just as I used to play with my dolls.

When he was nearly thirty-six, my brother Jem got his heart badly broken when his fourth marriage fell apart, mostly because his wife never could get used to Boo, who lived with them and creeped her out by making little wooden dolls of her and putting them in the hollow tree out front.

The Beauties” by Anton Chekhov, “The Doll’s House” by Katherine Mansfield, “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” by J. D. Salinger, “Brownies” or “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere” both by ZZ Packer, “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried” by Amy Hempel, “Fat” by Raymond Carver, “Indian Camp” by Ernest Hemingway.

There are three rules for living here. One, never leave your windows open after dark, even if it’s hot. Two, no dolls in the house. And three, never, ever go by the house in the woods. That’s where Beryl lives.

Mary and Laura clung tight to their rag dolls and did not say anything. The cousins stood around and looked at them. Grandma and all the aunts hugged and kissed them and hugged and kissed them again, saying good-by.

One day you woke up, looked around and started saying things like, “It was better back then,” or, “Music nowadays is just noise,” and when the words leave your lips, you’re stunned, thinking, man, when did this old guy appear?

Odlazak uvijek mora biti efektan.

Laughter's all the damned thing's fit for.

It means the world's about as solid and as reliable as a layer of scum on the top of a well of black water which goes down forever, and there are things in the depths that I don't even want to think about. It means more than that. It means that we're just dolls. We don't have a clue what's really going down, we just kid ourselves that we're in control of our lives while a paper's thickness away things that would drive us mad if we thought about them for too long play with us, and move us around from room to room, and put us away at night when they're tired, or bored.

Did I hear you say that you had no intention of ever dying?" "Um. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. It's a mug's game. I won't have any part of it." "Then you must tell me what it's like. Let us meet here again, Robert Gadling. In this tavern of the White Horse. In a hundred years.

Mary was bigger than Laura, and she had a rag doll named Nettie. Laura had only a corncob wrapped in a handkerchief, but it was a good doll. It was named Susan. It wasn't Susan's fault that she was only a corncob. Sometimes Mary let Laura hold Nettie, but she did it only when Susan couldn't see.

As soon as your fear was over--and it was not fear for what threatened me, but for what might happen to you--when the whole thing was past, as far as you were concerned it was exactly as if nothing at all had happened. Exactly as before, I was your little skylark, your doll, which you would in future treat with doubly gentle care, because it was so brittle and fragile.

Only In Sleep Only in sleep I see their faces, Children I played with when I was a child, Louise comes back with her brown hair braided, Annie with ringlets warm and wild. Only in sleep Time is forgotten -- What may have come to them, who can know? Yet we played last night as long ago, And the doll-house stood at the turn of the stair. The years had not sharpened their smooth round faces, I met their eyes and found them mild -- Do they, too, dream of me, I wonder, And for them am I too a child?

I wonder if someday Jack and I will have our own pram filled with tiny skeletons and rag dolls. The scuttle of little feet through the house. Skeleton boys tumbling down the spiral stairs; little rag doll girls with their threads coming loose, always needing their fingers and toes stitched back together. A perfectly grim little family.

Nevertheless the severance is rather casual and it drops a stain on our admiration of Nora. Ibsen has put the leaving of her children on the same moral and emotional level as the leaving of her husband and we cannot, in our hearts, asssent to that. It is not only the leaving but the way the play does not have time for suffering, changes of heart. Ibsen has been too much a man in the end. He has taken the man's practice, if not his stated belief, that where self-realization is concerned children shall not be an impediment.

Ridcully sat in horrified amazement. He’d always enjoyed Hogswatch, every bit of it. He’d enjoyed seeing ancient relatives, he’d enjoyed the food, he’d been good at games like Chase My Neighbor up the Passage and Hooray Jolly Tinker. He was always the first to don a paper hat. He felt that paper hats lent a special festive air to the occasion. And he always very carefully read the messages on Hogswatch cards and found time for a few kind thoughts about the sender. Listening to his wizards was like watching someone kick apart a doll’s house.

He said, I won't have one of those things in the house. It gives a young girl a false notion of beauty, not to mention anatomy. If a real woman was built like that she'd fall on her face. She said, If we don't let her have one like all the other girls she'll feel singled out. It'll become an issue. She'll long for one and she'll long to turn into one. Repression breeds sublimation. You know that. He said, It's not just the pointy plastic tits, it's the wardrobes. The wardrobes and that stupid male doll, what's his name, the one with the underwear glued on. She said, Better to get it over with when she's young. He said, All right but don't let me see it. She came whizzing down the stairs, thrown like a dart. She was stark naked. Her hair had been chopped off, her head was turned back to front, she was missing some toes and she'd been tattooed all over her body with purple ink, in a scrollwork design. She hit the potted azalea, trembled there for a moment like a botched angel, and fell. He said, I guess we're safe.

So what's your doll's name?" Boo asked me. "Barbie," I said. "All their names are Barbie." "I see," she said. "Well, I'd think that would get boring, everyone having the same name." I thought about this, then said, "Okay, then her name is Sabrina." "Well, that's a very nice name," Boo said. I remember she was baking bread, kneading the dough between her thick fingers. "What does she do?" "Do?" I said. "Yes." She flipped the dough over and started in on it from the other side. "What does she do?" "She goes out with Ken," I said. "And what else?" "She goes to parties," I said slowly. "And shopping." "Oh," Boo said, nodding. "She can't work?" "She doesn't have to work," I said. "Why not?" "Because she's Barbie." "I hate to tell you, Caitlin, but somebody has to make payments on that town house and the Corvette," Boo said cheerfully. "Unless Barbie has a lot of family money." I considered this while I put on Ken's pants. Boo started pushing the dough into a pan, smoothing it with her hand over the top. "You know what I think, Caitlin?" Her voice was soft and nice, the way she always spoke to me. "What?" "I think your Barbie can go shopping, and go out with Ken, and also have a productive and satisfying career of her own." She opened the oven and slid in the bread pan, adjusting its position on the rack. "But what can she do?" My mother didn't work and spent her time cleaning the house and going to PTA. I couldn't imagine Barbie, whose most casual outfit had sequins and go-go boots, doing s.uch things. Boo came over and plopped right down beside me. I always remember her being on my level; she'd sit on the edge of the sandbox, or lie across her bed with me and Cass as we listened to the radio. "Well," she said thoughtfully, picking up Ken and examining his perfect physique. "What do you want to do when you grow up?" I remember this moment so well; I can still see Boo sitting there on the floor, cross- legged, holding my Ken and watching my face as she tried to make me see that between my mother's PTA and Boo's strange ways there was a middle ground that began here with my Barbie, Sab-rina, and led right to me. "Well," I said abruptly, "I want to be in advertising." I have no idea where this came from. "Advertising," Boo repeated, nodding. "Okay. Advertising it is. So Sabrina has to go to work every day, coming up with ideas for commercials and things like that." "She works in an office," I went on. "Sometimes she has to work late." "Sure she does," Boo said. "It's hard to get ahead. Even if you're Barbie." "Because she wants to get promoted," I added. "So she can pay off the town house. And the Corvette." "Very responsible of her," Boo said. "Can she be divorced?" I asked. "And famous for her commercials and ideas?" "She can be anything," Boo told me, and this is what I remember most, her freckled face so solemn, as if she knew she was the first to tell me. "And so can you.

She repeated what her mother had told me, that she had been moved when she heard me playing as she passed the house. She had seen me on the street a few times, too, and begun to worship me. She actually used that word: worship. It made me turn bright red. I mean, to be 'worshiped' by such a beautiful little doll of a girl! I don't think it was an absolute lie, though. I was in my thirties already, of course, and I could never be as beautiful and bright as she was, and I had no special talent, but I must have had something that drew her to me, something that was missing in her, I would guess. Which must have been what got her interested in my to begin with. I believe that now, looking back. And I'm not boasting.

Only in sleep I see their faces, Children I played with when I was a child, Louise comes back with her brown hair braided, Annie with ringlets warm and wild. Only in sleep Time is forgotten– What may have come to them, who can know? Yet we played last night as long ago, And the doll-house stood at the turn of the stair. The years had not sharpened their smooth around faces, I met their eyes and found them mild– Do they, too, dream of me, I wonder, And for them am I, too, a child?

Nóra: ...Azt hiszem, hogy legelsősorban ember vagyok, éppen úgy, mint te - vagy mindenesetre meg kell kísérelnem, hogy az legyek. Jól tudom, hogy a legtöbben neked adnak igazat, Torvald; valami olyasmi van a könyvekben is. De én nem törődhetek vele tovább, hogy a többség mit mond, s mi van a könyvekben. Magamnak kell a dolgokat átgondolnom, s tisztába jönnöm velük.

I am coming through the barriers you have erected in this mind. I am coming, though the way be ardous and strange. Nothing will stop me. As I travel, I admire the craftsmanship in the construction of this maze, admire the traps and pitfalls they have wrought. You have learned well, my servants. To force the child to construct these barriers insides its mind, in its effort to escape the physical world; to build an island of dream alone and untouched by the true Dreaming... This takes skill. My admiration does not lessen my anger. I am dream. I am coming.

Helmer: To desert your home, your husband and your children! And you don‘t consider what people will say! Nora: I cannot consider that at all. I only know that it is necessary for me. Helmer: It‘s shocking. This is how you would neglect your most sacred duties. Nora: What do you consider my most sacred duties? Helmer: Do I need to tell you that? Are they not your duties to your husband and your children? Nora: I have other duties just as sacred. Helmer: That you have not. What duties could those be? Nora: Duties to myself. Helmer: Before all else, you are a wife and mother. Nora: I don‘t believe that any longer. I believe that before all else I am a reasonable human being, just as you are — or, at all events, that I must try and become one. I know quite well, Torvald, that most people would think you right, and that views of that kind are to be found in books; but I can no longer content myself with what most people say, or with what is found in books. I must think over things for myself and get to understand them.

Nothing is a masterpiece - a real masterpiece - till it's about two hundred years old. A picture is like a tree or a church, you've got to let it grow into a masterpiece. Same with a poem or a new religion. They begin as a lot of funny words. Nobody knows whether they're all nonsense or a gift from heaven. And the only people who think anything of 'em are a lot of cranks or crackpots, or poor devils who don't know enough to know anything. Look at Christianity. Just a lot of floating seeds to start with, all sorts of seeds. It was a long time before one of them grew into a tree big enough to kill the rest and keep the rain off. And it's only when the tree has been cut into planks and built into a house and the house has got pretty old and about fifty generations of ordinary lumpheads who don't know a work of art from a public convenience, have been knocking nails in the kitchen beams to hang hams on, and screwing hooks in the walls for whips and guns and photographs and calendars and measuring the children on the window frames and chopping out a new cupboard under the stairs to keep the cheese and murdering their wives in the back room and burying them under the cellar flags, that it begins even to feel like a religion. And when the whole place is full of dry rot and ghosts and old bones and the shelves are breaking down with old wormy books that no one could read if they tried, and the attic floors are bulging through the servants' ceilings with old trunks and top-boots and gasoliers and dressmaker's dummies and ball frocks and dolls-houses and pony saddles and blunderbusses and parrot cages and uniforms and love letters and jugs without handles and bridal pots decorated with forget-me-nots and a piece out at the bottom, that it grows into a real old faith, a masterpiece which people can really get something out of, each for himself. And then, of course, everybody keeps on saying that it ought to be pulled down at once, because it's an insanitary nuisance.

Have you ever seen Russian nesting dolls?” Thrown by the questions, she opened her eyes. Why would he suddenly speak about a child’s toy? “I own a few of them.” “Then you must understand that undressing you is like playing with one of those dolls. I open one to find another beneath it. I took away your gown to find you are still as clothed as you were a moment ago and I wonder how many more layers I will have to work through to get down to you—the doll I’m searching for.

Oh," he said again and picked up two petals of cherry blossom which he folded together like a sandwich and ate slowly. "Supposing," he said, staring past her at the wall of the house, "you saw a little man, about as tall as a pencil, with a blue patch in his trousers, halfway up a window curtain, carrying a doll's tea cup-would you say it was a fairy?" "No," said Arrietty, "I'd say it was my father." "Oh," said the boy, thinking this out, "does your father have a blue patch on his trousers?" "Not on his best trousers. He does on his borrowing ones." 'Oh," said the boy again. He seemed to find it a safe sound, as lawyers do. "Are there many people like you?" "No," said Arrietty. "None. We're all different." "I mean as small as you?" Arrietty laughed. "Oh, don't be silly!" she said. "Surely you don't think there are many people in the world your size?" "There are more my size than yours," he retorted. "Honestly-" began Arrietty helplessly and laughed again. "Do you really think-I mean, whatever sort of a world would it be? Those great chairs . . . I've seen them. Fancy if you had to make chairs that size for everyone? And the stuff for their clothes . . . miles and miles of it . . . tents of it ... and the sewing! And their great houses, reaching up so you can hardly see the ceilings . . . their great beds ... the food they eat ... great, smoking mountains of it, huge bogs of stew and soup and stuff." "Don't you eat soup?" asked the boy. "Of course we do," laughed Arrietty. "My father had an uncle who had a little boat which he rowed round in the stock-pot picking up flotsam and jetsam. He did bottom-fishing too for bits of marrow until the cook got suspicious through finding bent pins in the soup. Once he was nearly shipwrecked on a chunk of submerged shinbone. He lost his oars and the boat sprang a leak but he flung a line over the pot handle and pulled himself alongside the rim. But all that stock-fathoms of it! And the size of the stockpot! I mean, there wouldn't be enough stuff in the world to go round after a bit! That's why my father says it's a good thing they're dying out . . . just a few, my father says, that's all we need-to keep us. Otherwise, he says, the whole thing gets"-Arrietty hesitated, trying to remember the word-"exaggerated, he says-" "What do you mean," asked the boy, " 'to keep us'?

March 6, 1961 I remembered a party in a house outside of Ann Arbor. There was a jazz band -- piano, bass, drums, and sax -- playing in one of the large rooms. A heavy odor of marijuana hung in the air. The host appeared now and then looking pleased, as if he liked seeing strangers in every room, the party out of his control. It wasn't wild, but with a constant flow of people, who knows what they're doing. It became late and I was a little drunk, wandering from one part of the house to another. I entered a long hall and was surprised by the silence, as if I had entered another house. A girl at the other end of the hall was walking toward me. I saw large blue eyes and very black hair. She was about average height, doll-like features delicate as cut glass, extremely pretty, maybe the prettiest girl I'd ever seen. When she came up to me I took her in my arms and kissed her. She let it happen. We were like creatures in a dream. Holding her hand, I drew her with me and we passed through rooms where people stood about, and then left the house. As we drove away, she said her name was Margo. She was a freshman at the university, from a town in northern Michigan. I took her home. It was obvious she'd never gone home with a man. She didn't seem fearful, only uncertain, the question in her eyes: "What happens next?" What happened next was nothing much. We fell asleep in our clothes. I wasn't the one to make her no different from everyone.

Adora changed her color scheme from peach to yellow. She promised me she'd take me to the fabric store so I can make new coverings to match. This dollhouse is my fancy." She almost made it sound natural, my fancy. The words floated out of her mouth sweet and round like butterscotch, murmured with just a tilt of her head, but the phrase was definitely my mother's. Her little doll, learning to speak just like Adora. "Looks like you do a very good job with it," I said, and motioned a weak wave good-bye. "Thank you," she said. Her eyes focused on my room in the dollhouse. A small finger poked the bed. "I hope you enjoy your stay here," she murmured into the room, as if she were addressing a tiny Camille no one could see.

And there, in small warm pools of lamplight, you could see what Leo Auffmann wanted you to see. There sat Saul and Marshall, playing chess at the coffee table. In the dining room Rebecca was laying out the silver. Naomi was cutting paper-doll dresses. Ruth was painting water colors. Joseph was running his electric train. Through the kitchen door, Lena Auffman was sliding a pot roast from the steaming oven. Every hand, every head, every mouth made a big or little motion. You could hear their faraway voices under glass. You could hear someone singing in a high sweet voice. You could smell bread baking, too, and you knew it was real bread that would soon be covered with real butter. Everything was there and it was working. . . . "Sure," he murmured. "There it is." And he watched with now-gentle sorrow and now-quick delight, and at last quiet acceptance as all the bits and pieces of this house mixed, stirred, settled, poised, and ran steadily again. "The Happiness Machine," he said. "The Happiness Machine.

In The Garret Four little chests all in a row, Dim with dust, and worn by time, All fashioned and filled, long ago, By children now in their prime. Four little keys hung side by side, With faded ribbons, brave and gay When fastened there, with childish pride, Long ago, on a rainy day. Four little names, one on each lid, Carved out by a boyish hand, And underneath there lieth hid Histories of the happy band Once playing here, and pausing oft To hear the sweet refrain, That came and went on the roof aloft, In the falling summer rain. 'Meg' on the first lid, smooth and fair. I look in with loving eyes, For folded here, with well-known care, A goodly gathering lies, The record of a peaceful life-- Gifts to gentle child and girl, A bridal gown, lines to a wife, A tiny shoe, a baby curl. No toys in this first chest remain, For all are carried away, In their old age, to join again In another small Meg's play. Ah, happy mother! Well I know You hear, like a sweet refrain, Lullabies ever soft and low In the falling summer rain. 'Jo' on the next lid, scratched and worn, And within a motley store Of headless dolls, of schoolbooks torn, Birds and beasts that speak no more, Spoils brought home from the fairy ground Only trod by youthful feet, Dreams of a future never found, Memories of a past still sweet, Half-writ poems, stories wild, April letters, warm and cold, Diaries of a wilful child, Hints of a woman early old, A woman in a lonely home, Hearing, like a sad refrain-- 'Be worthy, love, and love will come,' In the falling summer rain. My Beth! the dust is always swept From the lid that bears your name, As if by loving eyes that wept, By careful hands that often came. Death canonized for us one saint, Ever less human than divine, And still we lay, with tender plaint, Relics in this household shrine-- The silver bell, so seldom rung, The little cap which last she wore, The fair, dead Catherine that hung By angels borne above her door. The songs she sang, without lament, In her prison-house of pain, Forever are they sweetly blent With the falling summer rain. Upon the last lid's polished field-- Legend now both fair and true A gallant knight bears on his shield, 'Amy' in letters gold and blue. Within lie snoods that bound her hair, Slippers that have danced their last, Faded flowers laid by with care, Fans whose airy toils are past, Gay valentines, all ardent flames, Trifles that have borne their part In girlish hopes and fears and shames, The record of a maiden heart Now learning fairer, truer spells, Hearing, like a blithe refrain, The silver sound of bridal bells In the falling summer rain. Four little chests all in a row, Dim with dust, and worn by time, Four women, taught by weal and woe To love and labor in their prime. Four sisters, parted for an hour, None lost, one only gone before, Made by love's immortal power, Nearest and dearest evermore. Oh, when these hidden stores of ours Lie open to the Father's sight, May they be rich in golden hours, Deeds that show fairer for the light, Lives whose brave music long shall ring, Like a spirit-stirring strain, Souls that shall gladly soar and sing In the long sunshine after rain

I went to my room and put some water on my hair, but you can't really comb a crew cut or anything. Then I tested to see if my breath stank from so many cigarettes and the Scotch and sodas I drank at Ernie's. All you do is hold your hand under your mouth and blow your breath up toward the old nostrils. It didn't seem to stink much, but I brushed my teeth anyway. Then I put on another clean shirt. I knew I didn't have to get all dolled up for a prostitute or anything, but it sort of gave me something to do. I was a little nervous. I was starting to feel pretty sexy and all, but I was a little nervous anyway. If you want to know the truth, I'm a virgin. I really am. I've had quite a few opportunities to lose my virginity and all, but I've never got around to it yet. Something always happens. For instance, if you're at a girl's house, her parents always come home at the wrong time – or you're afraid they will. Or if you're in the back seat of somebody's car, there's always somebody's date in the front seat – some girl, I mean – that always wants to know what's going on all over the whole goddam car. I mean some girl in front keeps turning around to see what the hell's going on. Anyway, something always happens. I came quite close to doing it a couple of times, though. One time in particular, I remember. Something went wrong, though – I don't even remember what any more. The thing is, most of the time when you're coming pretty close to doing it with a girl – a girl that isn't a prostitute or anything, I mean – she keeps telling you to stop. The trouble with me is, I stop. Most guys don't. I can't help it. You never know whether they really want you to stop, or whether they're just scared as hell, or whether they're just telling you to stop so that if you do go through with it, the blame'll be on you not them. Anyway, I keep stopping. The trouble is, I get to feeling sorry for them. I mean most girls are so dumb and all. After you neck them for a while, you can really watch them losing their brains. You take a girl when she really gets passionate, she just hasn't any brains. I don't know. They tell me to stop, so I stop. I always wish I hadn't, after I take them home, but I keep doing it anyway.

They lost their sense of reality, the notion of time, the rhythm of daily habits. They closed the doors and windows again so as not to waste time getting undressed and they walked about the house as Remedios the Beauty had wanted to do and they would roll around naked in the mud of the courtyard, and one afternoon they almost drowned as they made love in the cistern. In a short time they did more damage than the red ants: they destroyed the furniture in the parlor, in their madness they tore to shreds the hammock that had resisted the sad bivouac loves of Colonel Aureliano Buendía and they disemboweled the mattresses and emptied them on the floor as they suffocated in storms of cotton. Although Aureliano was just as ferocious a lover as his rival, it was Amaranta ?rsula who ruled in that paradise of disaster with her mad genius and her lyrical voracity, as if she had concentrated in her love the unconquerable energy that her great-great-grandmother had given to the making of little candy animals. And yet, while she was singing with pleasure and dying with laughter over her own inventions, Aureliano was becoming more and more absorbed and silent, for his passion was self-centered and burning. Nevertheless, they both reached such extremes of virtuosity that when they became exhausted from excitement, they would take advantage of their fatigue. They would give themselves over to the worship of their bodies, discovering that the rest periods of love had unexplored possibilities, much richer than those of desire. While he would rub Amaranta ?rsula’s erect breasts with egg whites or smooth her elastic thighs and peach-like stomach with cocoa butter, she would play with Aureliano’s portentous creature as if it were a doll and would paint clown’s eyes on it with her lipstick and give it a Turk’s mustache with her eyebrow pencil, and would put on organza bow ties and little tinfoil hats. One night they daubed themselves from head to toe with peach jam and licked each other like dogs and made mad love on the floor of the porch, and they were awakened by a torrent of carnivorous ants who were ready to eat them alive.

Hesitantly, Grandfather, Douglas, and Tom peered through the large windowpane. And there, in the small warm pools of lamplight, you could see what Leo Auffmann wanted you to see. There sat Saul and Marshall, playing chess at the coffee table. In the dining room Rebecca was laying out the silver. Naomi was cutting paper-doll dresses. Ruth was painting water colors. Joseph was running his electric train. Through the kitchen door, Lena Auffmann was sliding a pot roast from the steaming oven. Every hand, every head, every mouth made a big or little motion. You could hear their faraway voices under the glass. You could hear someone singing in a high sweet voice. You could smell bread baking too, and you knew it was real bread that would soon be covered in real butter. Everything was there and it was working. Grandfather, Douglas, and Tom turned to look at Leo Auffmann, who gazed serenely through the window, the pink light on his cheeks. "Sure," he murmured," There it is." And he watched with now-gentle sorrow and now-quick delight, and at last quiet acceptance as all the bits and pieces of this house mixed, stirred, settled, poised, and ran steadily again. "The Happiness Machine," he said. "The Happiness Machine.

No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be an heroine. Her situation in life, the character of her father and mother, her own person and disposition, were all equally against her. Her father was a clergyman, without being neglected, or poor, and a very respectable man, though his name was Richard — and he had never been handsome. He had a considerable independence besides two good livings — and he was not in the least addicted to locking up his daughters. Her mother was a woman of useful plain sense, with a good temper, and, what is more remarkable, with a good constitution. She had three sons before Catherine was born; and instead of dying in bringing the latter into the world, as anybody might expect, she still lived on — lived to have six children more — to see them growing up around her, and to enjoy excellent health herself. A family of ten children will be always called a fine family, where there are heads and arms and legs enough for the number; but the Morlands had little other right to the word, for they were in general very plain, and Catherine, for many years of her life, as plain as any. She had a thin awkward figure, a sallow skin without colour, dark lank hair, and strong features — so much for her person; and not less unpropitious for heroism seemed her mind. She was fond of all boy's plays, and greatly preferred cricket not merely to dolls, but to the more heroic enjoyments of infancy, nursing a dormouse, feeding a canary-bird, or watering a rose-bush. Indeed she had no taste for a garden; and if she gathered flowers at all, it was chiefly for the pleasure of mischief — at least so it was conjectured from her always preferring those which she was forbidden to take. Such were her propensities — her abilities were quite as extraordinary. She never could learn or understand anything before she was taught; and sometimes not even then, for she was often inattentive, and occasionally stupid. Her mother was three months in teaching her only to repeat the "Beggar's Petition"; and after all, her next sister, Sally, could say it better than she did. Not that Catherine was always stupid — by no means; she learnt the fable of "The Hare and Many Friends" as quickly as any girl in England. Her mother wished her to learn music; and Catherine was sure she should like it, for she was very fond of tinkling the keys of the old forlorn spinner; so, at eight years old she began. She learnt a year, and could not bear it; and Mrs. Morland, who did not insist on her daughters being accomplished in spite of incapacity or distaste, allowed her to leave off. The day which dismissed the music-master was one of the happiest of Catherine's life. Her taste for drawing was not superior; though whenever she could obtain the outside of a letter from her mother or seize upon any other odd piece of paper, she did what she could in that way, by drawing houses and trees, hens and chickens, all very much like one another. Writing and accounts she was taught by her father; French by her mother: her proficiency in either was not remarkable, and she shirked her lessons in both whenever she could. What a strange, unaccountable character! — for with all these symptoms of profligacy at ten years old, she had neither a bad heart nor a bad temper, was seldom stubborn, scarcely ever quarrelsome, and very kind to the little ones, with few interruptions of tyranny; she was moreover noisy and wild, hated confinement and cleanliness, and loved nothing so well in the world as rolling down the green slope at the back of the house.