Lon Po Po Quotes

To all the wolves of the world for lending their good name as a tangible symbol for our darkness.

She was the first close friend who I felt like I’d re­ally cho­sen. We weren’t in each other’s lives be­cause of any obli­ga­tion to the past or con­ve­nience of the present. We had no shared his­tory and we had no rea­son to spend all our time to­ gether. But we did. Our friend­ship in­ten­si­fied as all our friends had chil­dren – she, like me, was un­con­vinced about hav­ing kids. And she, like me, found her­self in a re­la­tion­ship in her early thir­ties where they weren’t specif­i­cally work­ing to­wards start­ing a fam­ily. By the time I was thirty-four, Sarah was my only good friend who hadn’t had a baby. Ev­ery time there was an­other preg­nancy an­nounce­ment from a friend, I’d just text the words ‘And an­other one!’ and she’d know what I meant. She be­came the per­son I spent most of my free time with other than Andy, be­cause she was the only friend who had any free time. She could meet me for a drink with­out plan­ning it a month in ad­vance. Our friend­ship made me feel lib­er­ated as well as safe. I looked at her life choices with no sym­pa­thy or con­cern for her. If I could ad­mire her de­ci­sion to re­main child-free, I felt en­cour­aged to ad­mire my own. She made me feel nor­mal. As long as I had our friend­ship, I wasn’t alone and I had rea­son to be­lieve I was on the right track. We ar­ranged to meet for din­ner in Soho af­ter work on a Fri­day. The waiter took our drinks or­der and I asked for our usual – two Dirty Vodka Mar­ti­nis. ‘Er, not for me,’ she said. ‘A sparkling wa­ter, thank you.’ I was ready to make a joke about her un­char­ac­ter­is­tic ab­sti­nence, which she sensed, so as soon as the waiter left she said: ‘I’m preg­nant.’ I didn’t know what to say. I can’t imag­ine the ex­pres­sion on my face was par­tic­u­larly en­thu­si­as­tic, but I couldn’t help it – I was shocked and felt an un­war­ranted but in­tense sense of be­trayal. In a de­layed re­ac­tion, I stood up and went to her side of the ta­ble to hug her, un­able to find words of con­grat­u­la­tions. I asked what had made her change her mind and she spoke in va­garies about it ‘just be­ing the right time’ and wouldn’t elab­o­rate any fur­ther and give me an an­swer. And I needed an an­swer. I needed an an­swer more than any­thing that night. I needed to know whether she’d had a re­al­iza­tion that I hadn’t and, if so, I wanted to know how to get it. When I woke up the next day, I re­al­ized the feel­ing I was ex­pe­ri­enc­ing was not anger or jeal­ousy or bit­ter­ness – it was grief. I had no one left. They’d all gone. Of course, they hadn’t re­ally gone, they were still my friends and I still loved them. But huge parts of them had dis­ap­peared and there was noth­ing they could do to change that. Un­less I joined them in their spa­ces, on their sched­ules, with their fam­i­lies, I would barely see them. And I started dream­ing of an­other life, one com­pletely re­moved from all of it. No more chil­dren’s birth­day par­ties, no more chris­ten­ings, no more bar­be­cues in the sub­urbs. A life I hadn’t ever se­ri­ously con­tem­plated be­fore. I started dream­ing of what it would be like to start all over again. Be­cause as long as I was here in the only Lon­don I knew – mid­dle-class Lon­don, cor­po­rate Lon­don, mid-thir­ties Lon­don, mar­ried Lon­don – I was in their world. And I knew there was a whole other world out there.

Vous n'avez jamais vu fusiller un homme? Non, bien sûr, cela se fait généralement sur invitation et le public est choisi d'avance. Le résultat est que vous en êtes resté aux estampes et aux livres. Un bandeau, un poteau, et au loin quelques soldats. Eh bien, non! Savez-vous que le peloton des fusilleurs se place au contraire à un mètre cinquante du condamné? Savez-vous que si le condamné faisait deux pas en avant, il heurterait les fusils avec sa poitrine? Savez-vous qu'à cette courte distance, les fusilleurs concentrent leur tir sur la région du cœur et qu'à eux tous, avec leurs grosses balles, ils y font un trou où l'on pourrait mettre le poing? Non, vous ne le savez pas parce que ce sont là des détails dont on ne parle pas. Le sommeil des hommes est plus sacré que la vie pour les pestiférés. On ne doit pas empêcher les braves gens de dormir. Il y faudrait du mauvais goût, et le goût consiste à ne pas insister, tout le monde sait ça. Mais moi, je n'ai pas bien dormi depuis ce temps-là. Le mauvais goût m'est resté dans la bouche et je n'ai pas cessé d'insister, c'est-à-dire d'y penser.

Nell'uf­fi­cio po­sta­le si di­res­se di­ret­ta­men­te all'im­pie­ga­to: "Sto aspet­tan­do una let­te­ra ur­gen­te," dis­se. "Per via ae­rea." L'im­pie­ga­to cer­cò nel­le ca­sel­le clas­si­fi­ca­te. Quan­do ter­mi­nò di leg­ge­re ri­po­se le let­te­re nel­lo scaf­fa­le ma non dis­se nul­la. Si stro­fi­nò le mani e ri­vol­se al co­lon­nel­lo un'oc­chia­ta si­gni­fi­ca­ti­va. "Do­ve­va ar­ri­va­re oggi sen­za fal­lo," dis­se il co­lon­nel­lo. L'im­pie­ga­to scrol­lò le spal­le. "L'uni­ca cosa che ar­ri­va sen­za fal­lo è la mor­te, co­lon­nel­lo.