Hard Boiled Wonderland Quotes

two people can sleep in the same bed and still be alone when they close their eyes

Everyone may be ordinary, but they're not normal.

Whiskey, like a beautiful woman, demands appreciation. You gaze first, then it's time to drink.

Music brings a warm glow to my vision, thawing mind and muscle from their endless wintering.

Unclose your mind. You are not a prisoner. You are a bird in fight, searching the skies for dreams.

Deep rivers run quiet.

I never trust people with no appetite. It's like they're always holding something back on you.

Only where there is disillusionment and depression and sorrow does happiness arise; without the despair of loss, there is no hope.

Open your eyes, train your ears, use your head. If a mind you have, then use it while you can.

Kindness and a caring mind are two separate qualities. Kindness is manners. It is superficial custom, an acquired practice. Not so the mind. The mind is deeper, stronger, and, I believe, it is far more inconstant.

Losing you is most difficult for me, but the nature of my love for you is what matters. If it distorts into half-truth, then perhaps it is better not to love you. I must keep my mind but loose you.

You got to know your limits. Once is enough, but you got to learn. A little caution never hurt anyone. A good woodsman has only one scar on him. No more, no less.

Genius or fool, you don't live in the world alone. You can hide underground or you can build a wall around yourself, but somebody's going to come along and screw up the works.

Everything, everything seemed once-upon-a-time.

Life's no piece of cake, mind you, but the recipe's my own to fool with.

I wasn't particularly afraid of death itself. As Shakespeare said, die this year and you don't have to die the next.

I've always liked libraries. They're quiet and full of books and full of knowledge.

Most human activities are predicated on the assumption that life goes on. If you take that premise away, what is there left?

Once again, life had a lesson to teach me: It takes years to build up, it takes moments to destroy.

Fairness is a concept that holds only in limited situations. Yet we want the concept to extend to everything, in and out of phase. From snails to hardware stores to married life. Maybe no one finds it, or even misses it, but fairness is like love. What is given has nothing to do with what we seek.

It's like a kid standing at the window watching the rain.

Huge organizations and me don't get along. They're too inflexible, waste too much time, and have too many stupid people.

What was lost was lost. There was no retrieving it, however you schemed, no returning to how things were, no going back.

But didn't you say you were satisfied with your life?" "Word games," I dismissed. "Every army needs a flag.

The best musicians transpose consciousness into sound; painters do the same for color and shape.

You're wrong. The mind is not like raindrops. It does not fall from the skies, it does not lose itself among other things. If you believe in me at all, then believe this: I promise you I will find it. Everything depends on this." "I believe you," she whispers after a moment. "Please find my mind.

I am here, alone, at the end of the world. I reach out and touch nothing.”.

Time is too conceptual. Not that it stops us from filling it in. So much so, we can't even tell whether our experiences belong to time or to the world of physical things.

There had to be something wrong with my life. I should have been born a Yugoslavian shepherd who looked up at the Big Dipper every night.

That's wrong," she declared. "Everyone must have one thing that they can excel at. It's just a matter of drawing it out, isn't it? But school doesn't know how to draw it out. It crushes the gift. It's no wonder most people never get to be what they want to be. They just get ground down.

It takes years to build up, it takes moments to destroy.

Death leaves cans of shaving cream half-used.

Once, when I was younger, I thought I could be someone else. I'd move to Casablanca, open a bar, and I'd meet Ingrid Bergman. Or more realistically - whether actually more realistic or not - I'd tune in on a better life, something more suited to my true self. Toward that end, I had to undergo training. I read The Greening of America, and I saw Easy Rider three times. But like a boat with a twisted rudder, I kept coming back to the same place. I wasn't anywhere. I was myself, waiting on the shore for me to return.

Many are the women who can take their clothes off seductively, but women who can charm as they dress?

But like a boat with a twisted rudder, I kept coming back to the same place. I wasn't going anywhere. I was myself, waiting on the shore for me to return. Was that so depressing? Who knows? Maybe that was 'despair.' What Turgenev called 'disillusionment.' Or Dostoyevsky, 'hell.' Or Somerset Maugham, 'reality.' Whatever the label, I figured it was me.

Having a drink in bed while listening to music and reading a book. As precious to me as a beautiful sunset or good clean air.

Now for a good twelve-hour sleep, I told myself. Twelve solid hours. Let birds sing, let people go to work. Somewhere out there, a volcano might blow, Israeli commandos might decimate a Palestinian village. I couldn't stop it. I was going to sleep.

Let your body work until it is spent, but keep your mind for yourself.

That's evolution. Evolution's always hard. Hard and bleak. No such thing as happy evolution

You are caught between all that was and all that must be. You feel lost. Mark my words: as soon as the bones mend, you will forget about the fracture.

All imperfections are forced upon the imperfect, so the 'perfect' can live content and oblivious.

I think of myself as more the non-turn-on type. so when I do get turned on, I don’t trust it, I have to investigate the source.

Flaws in oneself open you up to others with flaws.

Listen. I may not be much, but I'm all I've got. Maybe you need a magnifying glass to find my face in my high school graduation photo. Maybe I haven't got any family or friends. Yes, yes, I know all that. But, strange as it might seem, I'm not entirely dissatisfied with life... I feel pretty much at home with what I am. I don't want to go anywhere. I don't want any unicorns behind fences.

Genius or fool, you don't live in the world alone.

To think that each skull once had skin and flesh and was stuffed with gray matter—in varying quantities—teeming with thoughts of food and sex and dominance. All now vanished.

You said that the mind is like the wind but perhaps it is we who are like the wind Knowing nothing, simply blowing through. Never aging, never dying.

As with marathon runs and lengths of toilet paper, there had to be standards to measure up to.

How can the mind be so imperfect?" she says with a smile. I look at my hands. Bathed in the moonlight, they seem like statues, proportioned to no purpose. "It may well be imperfect," I say, "but it leaves traces. And we can follow those traces, like footsteps in the snow." "Where do the lead?" "To oneself," I answer. "That's where the mind is. Without the mind, nothing leads anywhere." I look up. The winter moon is brilliant, over the Town, above the Wall. "Not one thing is your fault," I comfort her.

Nobody chooses to evolve. It's like floods and avalanches and earthquakes. You never know what's happening until they hit, then it's too late.

Properly speaking, should any individual ever have exact, clear knowledge of his own core consciousness?" "I wouldn't know," I said. "Nor would we," said the scientists.

The unwaking world was as hushed as a deep forest.

There are times when the understanding does not come until later, when it no longer matters. Other times I do what I must do, not knowing my own mind, and I am led astray.

Besides being the world the kind of sadness that can not be expressed in tears. You can not explain it to anyone. Unable to take any shape, settles quietly in the bottom of the heart as snow during the windless night.

Had I done the right thing by not telling her? Maybe not. Who on earth wanted the right thing anyway? Yet what meaning could there be if nothing was right? If nothing was fair? Fairness is a concept that holds only in limited situations. Yet we want the concept to extend to everything, in and out of phase.

Humans are immortal in their thought. Though strictly speakin’, not immortal, but endlessly, asymptotically close to immortal. That’s eternal life.

I have a thing about losers. Flaws in oneself open you up to others with flaws.

Think it over carefully. This is very important," I say, "because to believe something, whatever it might be, is the doing of the mind. Do you follow? When you say you believe, you allow the possibility of disappointment. And from disappointment or betrayal, there may come despair. Such is the way of the mind.

When microorganisms die, they make oil; when huge timbers fall, they make coal. But everything here was pure, unadulterated rubbish that didn't make anything. Where does a busted videodeck get you?

As the autumn deepens, the fathomless lakes of their eyes assume an ever more sorrowful hue. The leaves turn color, the grasses wither; the beasts sense the advance of a long, hungry season. And bowing to their vision, I too know a sadness.

As long as an individual's alive, he will undergo experience in some form or other, and those experiences are stored up instant by instant. To stop experiencin' is to die.

Never trust a man who carries a handkerchief, I always say. One of many prejudicial rules of thumb.

Were the stars out when I left the house last evening? All I could remember was the couple in the Skyline listening to Duran Duran. Stars? Who remembers stars? Come to think of it, had I even looked up at the sky recently? Had the stars been wiped out of the sky three months ago, I wouldn’t have known.

You tell me there is no fighting or hatred or desire in the Town. That is a beautiful dream, and I do want your happiness. But the absence of fighting or hatred or desire also means the opposites do not exist either. No joy, no communion, no love. Only where there is disillusionment and depression and sorrow does happiness arise; without despair or loss, there is no hope.

she was beautiful and seemingly quite intelligent, what with her pentameter search system. There wasn't a reason in the world not to find her appealing.

I thought about the screws and their happiness. Maybe they were glad to be free of the eggbeater, to be independent screws, to luxuriate on white trays. It did feel good to see them happy.

Two people can sleep in the same bed and still be alone when they close their eyes.

I gazed up at the sky. I was in a tiny boat, on a vast ocean. No wind, no waves, just me floating there. Adrift on the open sea.. ..A tiny boat cut loose from the fiction of the ship.

But how do you see you?" she asked. "Ever read The Brothers Karamazov?" I asked. "Once, a long time ago." "Well, toward the end, Alyosha is speaking to a young student named Kolya Krasotkin. And he says, Kolya, you're going to have a miserable future. But overall, you'll have a happy life." Two beers down, I hesitated before opening my third. "When I first read that, I didn't know what Alyosha meant," I said. "How was it possible for a life of misery to be happy overall? But then I understood, that misery could be limited to the future." "I have no idea what you're talking about." "Neither do I," I said. "Not yet.

Better not to think at all than to think halfway.

No two human beings are alike; it's a question of identity. And what is identity? The cognitive system arisin' from the aggregate memories of that individual's past experiences. The layman's word for this is the mind. Not two human beings have the same mind. At the same time, human beings have almost no grasp of their own cognitive systems. I don't, you don't, nobody does. All we know—or think we know—is but a fraction of the whole cake. A mere tip of the icing.

I always say—a prejudice on my part, I'm sure—you can tell a lot about a person's character from his choice of sofa. Sofas constitute a realm inviolate unto themselves. This, however, is something that only those who have grown up sitting on good sofas will appreciate. It's like growing up reading good books or listening to good music. One good sofa breeds another good sofa; one bad sofa breeds another bad sofa. That's how it goes. There are people who drive luxury cars, but have only second- or third-rate sofas in their homes. I put little trust in such people. An expensive automobile may well be worth its price, but it's only an expensive automobile. If you have the money, you can buy it, anyone can buy it. Procuring a good sofa, on the other hand, requires style and experience and philosophy. It takes money, yes, but you also need a vision of the superior sofa. That sofa among sofas.

When you say you believe, you allow the possibility of disappointment. And from disappointment or betrayal, there may come despair. Such is the way of the mind.

I shouted into the phone, but there was no reply. Silence floated up from the receiver like smoke from the mouth of a gun.

Grandfather always said school's a place where they take sixteen years to wear down your brain. Grandfather hardly went to school either.

That's the way it is with the mind. Nothing is ever equal. Like a river, as it flows, the course changes with the terrain.

The mind is strong. It survives, even without thought. Even with everything taken away, it holds a seed—your self.

fairness is like love. What is given has nothing to do with what we seek

Only where there is disillusionment and depression and sorrow does happiness arise: without the despair of loss, there is no hope.

You are not lost. It's just that your own thoughts are being kept from you, or hidden away. But the mind is strong. It survives, even without thought. Even with everything taken away, it holds a seed--your self. You must believe in your own powers.

I do want your happiness. But the absence of fighting or hatred or desire also means the opposites do not exist either. No joy, no communion, no love. Only where there is disillusionment and depression and sorrow does happiness arise; without the despair of loss, there is no hope.

As you may know, in this Town, memory is unreliable and uncertain. There are things we can remember and things we cannot remember.

The longer you stay in here , the more you get to thinking that things are normal.

No. Kindness and a caring mind are two separate qualities. Kindness is manners. It is superficial custom, an acquired practice. Not so the mind. The mind is deeper, stronger and, I believe, it is far more inconstant.

I study the chessboard and concede defeat. "You can gain yourself in five moves" says the Colonel. "Worth fighting to the end. In five moves your opponent can err. No war is won or lost until the final battle is over.

La clase de chicas guapas que, por más tiempo que las mires, en cuanto apartas los ojos de ellas, ya no te acuerdas de qué cara tenían. En el mundo existe este tipo de belleza. Que es como los pomelos: indistinta.

Anyway, I'm in bed with her, with her bracelets. Her face is a blank, so I darken the lights. Off go her silky undergarments. The bracelets are all she has on. They glint slightly, a pleasant muffled clinking on the sheets. I have a hard-on. Which, halfway down the ladder, is what I noticed. Just great. Why now? Why didn't I get an erection when I needed one? And why was I getting so excited over two lousy bracelets? Especially under this slicker, with the world about to end.

As always, we sit on the narrow steps that lead from the Old Bridge down to the sandbar. A pale silver moon trembles on the face of the water. A wooden boat lashed to a post modulates the sound of the current. Sitting with her, I feel her warm against my arm.

pulled into my convenient neighborhood fast food restaurant. I ordered shrimp salad, onion rings, and a beer. The shrimp were straight out of the freezer, the onion rings soggy. Looking around the place, though, I failed to spot a single customer banging on a tray or complaining to a waitress. So I shut up and finished my food. Expect nothing, get nothing.

They dig holes from time to time,' the Colonel explains. 'It is probably for them what chess is for me. It has no special meaning, does not transport them anywhere. All of us dig at our own pure holes. We have nothing to achieve by our activities, nowhere to get to. Is there not something marvelous about this? We hurt no one and no one gets hurt. No victory, no defeat.

Eppure, se avessi potuto ricominciare da capo, ero sicuro che avrei rifatto le stesse identiche cose. Perché quello ero io: quella vita in cui continuavo a perdere tutto. Non avrei potuto fare altro che diventare me stesso, nient'altro che me stesso, con tutte le persone che mi avrebbero lasciato, o che io avrei lasciato, con tutti i bei sentimenti e le magnifiche qualità e i sogni che sarebbero andati distrutti, o perlomeno che avrei dovuto ridimensionare.

I wasn’t particularly afraid of death itself. As Shakespeare said, die this year and you don’t have to die the next. All quite simple, if you want to look at it that way. Life’s no piece of cake, mind you, but the recipe’s my own to fool with. Hence I can live with it. But after I’m dead, can’t I just lie in peace? Those Egyptian pharoahs had a point, wanting to shut themselves up inside pyramids.

You must not let fatigue set in," she warns. "That is what my mother said. Let your body work until it is spent, but keep your mind for yourself." "Good advice." "To tell the truth, I do not know this thing called 'mind', what it does or how to use it. It is only a word I have heard." "The mind is nothing you use," I say. "The mind is just there. It is like the wind. You simply feel its movements.

Sunlight traveled a long distance to reach this planet; an infinitesimal portion of that energy was enough to warm my eyelids. I was moved. That something as insignificant as an eyelid had its place in the workings of the universe, that the cosmic order did not overlook this momentary fact.

I never had what it takes to make a first-rate anything.' 'That's wrong,' she declared. 'Everyone must have one thing that they can excel at. It's just a matter of drawing it out, isn't it?' But school doesn't know how to draw it out. It crushes the gift. It's no wonder most people never get to be what they want to be. They just get ground down.

They had stolen my memories from me! Nobody had that right. Nobody! My memories belonged to me. Stealing memories was stealing time. I got so mad, I lost all fear. I didn't care what happened. I want to live! I told myself. I will live. I will get out of this insane netherworld and get back my stolen memories back and live. Forget the end of the world, I was ready to reclaim my whole self.

Then I got undressed and, crawling under the covers, sat up in bed and sipped my drink. I felt like I was going to fade out any second, but I had to allow myself this luxury. A ritual interlude I like so much between the time I get into bed and the time I fall asleep. Having a drink in bed while listening to music and reading a book. As precious to me as a beautiful sunset or good clean air.

I was born by the sea," I said. "I'd go to the beach the morning after a typhoon and find all sorts of things that the waves had tossed up. There'd be bottles and wooden geta and hats and cases for glasses, tables and chairs, things from nowhere near the water. I liked combing through the stuff, so I was always waiting for the next typhoon. I put out my cigarette. The strange thing is, everything washed up from the sea was purified. Useless junk, but absolutely clean. There wasn't a dirty thing. The sea is special in that way. When I look back over my life so far, I see all that junk on the beach. It's how my life has always been. Gathering up the junk, sorting through it, and then casting it off somewhere else. All for no purpose, leaving it to wash away again. This was in your hometown? This is all my life. I merely go from one beach to another. Sure I remember the things that happen in between, but that's all. I never tie them together. They're so many things, clean but useless.

Hören Sie, ich weiß sehr gut, dass ich so klein und unbedeutend bin, dass man eine Lupe braucht, um mich wahrzunehmen. Das war schon immer so. Suchen Sie mich mal auf einem Klassenfoto heraus, das dauert! Ich habe keine Familie, wenn ich jetzt von der Bildfläche verschwinde, gerät niemand in Not. Ich habe keine Freunde, keiner wird trauern, wenn ich nicht mehr da bin. Das weiß ich alles. Trotzdem, es hört sich vielleicht komisch an, aber ich war mit der Welt, wie sie ist, zufrieden. Warum, weiß ich nicht. Vielleicht war ich auch zwei und hab mich köstlich mit mir selbst amüsiert. Ich weiß es nicht. Jedenfalls fühle ich mich in dieser Welt sehr wohl. Vieles darin gefällt mir nicht, und manchen scheine ich nicht zu gefallen, doch anderes gefällt mir, und was mir gefällt, gefällt mir -sehr-. Ob ich der Welt gefalle, ist mir scheißegal. Das ist mein Leben. Ich will nicht woanders hin. Unsterblichkeit brauche ich nicht. Alt werden ist nicht einfach, doch es betrifft mich ja nicht allein. Alle werden alt. Einhörner will ich nicht, ich will auch keinen Zaun!

Were the stars out when I left the house last evening? All I could remember was the couple in the Skyline listening to Duran Duran. Stars? Who remembers stars? Come to think of it, had I even looked up at the sky recently? Had the stars been wiped out of the sky three months ago, I wouldn't have known. The only things I noticed were silver bracelets on women's wrists and popsicle sticks in potted rubber plants. There had to be something wrong with my life. I should have been born a Yugoslavian shepherd who looked up at the Big Dipper every night. No car, no car stereo, no silver bracelets, no shuffling, no dark blue tweed suits. My world foreshortened, flattening into a credit card. Seen head on, things seemed merely skewed, but from the side the view was virtually meaningless—a one-dimensional wafer. Everything about me may have been crammed in there, but it was only plastic. Indecipherable except to some machine. My first circuit must have been wearing thin. My real memories were receding into planar projection, the screen of consciousness losing all identity.