{ "quotes": [ [ "Happy you feel as you climb up along its ears, almost falling into its cavernous mouth, to the belly-summit and look out over the pink woolen landscape of the rabbit's body, a country dropped from the sky; ears and limbs sneaking into the distance; from its side flowing heart, liver and intestines.", "Happily in love you step down the decaying corpse, through the wound, now small like a maggot, over woolen kidney and bowel.", "Happy you leave like the larva that gets its wings from an innocent carcass at the roadside.", "Such is the happiness which made this rabbit.", "- Hase" ], [ "The ancients built Valdrada on the shores of a lake, with houses all verandas one above the other, and high streets whose railed parapets look out over the water. Thus the traveler, arriving, sees two cities: one erect above the lake, and the other reflected, upside down. Nothing exists or happens in the one Valdrada \that the other Valdrada does not repeat, because the city was so constructed that its every point would be reflected in its mirror, and the Valdrada down in the water contains not only all the flutings and juttings of the facades that rise above the lake, but also the rooms' interiors with ceilings and floors, the perspective of the halls, the mirrors of the wardrobes.", "Valdrada's inhabitants know that each of their actions is, at once, that action and its mirror-image, which possesses the special dignity of images, and this awareness prevents them from succumbing for a single moment to chance and forgetfulness. Even when lovers twist their naked bodies, skin against skin, seeking the position that will give one the most pleasure in the other, even when murderers plunge the knife into the black veins of the neck and more clotted blood pours out the more they press the blade that slips between the tendons, it is not so much their copulating or murdering that matters as the copulating or murdering of the images, limpid and cold in the mirror.", "At times the mirror increases a thing's value, at times denies it. Not everything that seems valuable above the mirror maintains its force when mirrored. The twin cities are not equal, because nothing that exists or happens in Valdrada is symmetrical: every face and gesture is answered, from the mirror, by a face and gesture inverted, point by point. The two Valdradas live for each other, their eyes interlocked; but there is no love between them.", "- Invisible Cities, Calvino" ], [ "The Creaking Wheel", "A Coachman hearing one of the Wheels of his coach make a great noise, and perceiving that it was the worst one of the four, asked how it came to take such a liberty.", "The Wheel answered that from the beginning of time creaking had always been the privilege of the weak.", "Much smoke, little fire", "- Aesop's Fables" ], [ "I've known great beauties proudly distant,", "As cold and caste as winter snow;", "Implacable, to all resistant,", "Impossible for mind to know;", "I've marvelled at their haughty manner,", "Their natural virtue's flaunted banner;", "And I confess, from them I fled,", "As if in terror I ahd read", "Above their brows the sign of Hades:", "Abandon Hope, Who Enter Here!", "Their joy is striking men with fear,", "For love offends these charming ladies.", "Perhaps along the Neva's shore", "You too have known such belles before.", "- Eugene Onegin, Alexander Pushkin, translation by James E. Falen" ], [ "\"Tell me, my pretty girl,\" I said, \"what were you doing today on the roof?\"", "\"Oh, just tried to see whence the wind was blowing\"", "\"What is that to you?\"", "\"Whence the wind comes, happiness comes, too.\"", "\"So you were inviting happiness with your song?\"", "\"Where there are songs, there is happiness.\"", "\"And what if you chance to sing sorrow in?\"", "\"What of it? Where it will not get better, it will get worse, and then again, it is not far from bad to good.\"", "\"And who taught you that song?\"", "\"Nobody taught me, I sing when I feel like singing; he who is meant to hear it, will hear, and he who is not, will not understand\"", "\"And what's your name, my songstress?\"", "\"The one who christened me knows.\"", "\"And who christened you?\"", "\"How should I know?\"", "\"What reticence!\"", "- A Hero of Our Time, Mikhail Lermontov, translation by Vladimir Nabokov, Dmitri Nabokov" ], [ "\"I just knew it!\" he muttered in confusion. \"It's just as I thought! That's the worst of all! Some stupid thing like that, some trivial detail, can ruin the whole scheme! Yes, the hat is too conspicuous... Ludicrous, and therefore conspicuous... My rags certainly call for a cap, even if it's some old pancake, not this monster. Nobody wears this kind, it can be noticed a mile away, and remembered... above all, it will be remembered later, so there's evidence for you. Here one must be as inconspicuous as possible... Details, details above all!... It's these details that ruin everything always...\"", "- Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dosteovsky, translation by Richard Pevear, Larissa Volokhonsky" ], [ "A Lost Love: Like a gnawing ache, a hole in the heart", "You feel, always, that something is missing. In the middle of other things you will look up, and around, and then remember that they will never be there", "- Sunless Skies, Alexis Kennedy ?" ], [ "A Lost Love: Like a fresh wound, as red now as it was then", "Sometimes the grief is raw, ravaging; a wolf-howl in a midwinter's night. At other times it sullenly slinks, waiting for a reason - any reason - to lift its head and howl again.", "- Sunless Skies, Alexis Kennedy ?" ], [ "Vladimir: What do we do now?", "Estragon: Wait.", "Vladimir: Yes, but while waiting.", "Estragon: What about hanging ourselves?", "Vladimir: Hmm. It'd give us an erection.", "Estragon: (highly excited). An erection!", "Vladimir: With all that follows. Where it falls mandrakes grow. That's why they shriek when you pull them up. Did you not know that?", "Estragon: Let's hang ourselves immediately!", "- Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett" ], [ "'Oh, my dear sir!' said Don Antonio. 'God forgive you for the offence that you've committed against the whole world in attempting to restore the funniest madman in it to his senses! Don't you see, sir, that the benefits of Don Quixote's recovery can't be compared with the pleasure that his antics provide? But I suspect that all your ingenuity, my dear young graduate, won't be sufficient to make such a raving lunatic sane again, and if it weren't uncharitable to do so I'd say that I hope Don Quixote never recovers, because if he does we won't only lose his antics but those of his squire Sancho Panza as well, any one of which is enough to make melancholy itself merry. I'll keep quiet, all the same, and I shan't say a word to him, just to see whether I'm right in my suspicion that all Señor Carrasco's efforts will be fruitless.", "- Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, translation by John Rutherford" ], [ "[Bella]: You imprinted on my daughter!?", "[Jacob]: It wasn't my choice!", "[Bella]: She's a baby!", "[Jacob]: It's not like that! You think Edward would let me if it was?", "[Edward]: Still debating it", "[Bella]: I've held her once! One time Jacob! And already you think you have some moronic wolfy claim on her!?", "[Bella]: ... She's MINE!!!", "Bella sucker punches Jacob's body. Edward cheeses. The wolves arrive.", "... ... ...", "[Bella]: You're gonna stay away from her", "[Jacob]: You know I can't do that.", "Bella punches Jacob in the solar plexus again. He flies back, landing in the Forks moss", "... ... ...", "[Edward]: She's amazing, right?", "[Jacob]: Do you remember how much you wanted to be around me three days ago? That's gone now, right?", "[Bella]: Long gone", "[Jacob]: Because it was her. From the beginning, it was Nessie who wanted me there.", "[Bella]: Nessie!? YOU NICKNAMED MY DAUGHTER AFTER THE LOCH NESS MONSTER!?", "They clash", "... ... ...", "[Jacob]: Bella, you know me. Better than anyone. ALl I want is for Ness—Renesmee—to be safe. Happy. Look, nothing ever made sense before. You, me, any of it. But now I understand why. This was the reason.", "- Twilight: Breaking Dawn Pt 2, Original book by Stephanie Meyer, movie written by Melissa Rosenberg, directed by Bill Condon, transcribed by me." ] ] }