Contemporary Literature Quotes

“[novan]: bassists are very good with their fingers
[novan]: and some of us sing backup vocals, so that means we're good with our mouths too...

(~ IM chat with Novan Chang, 18, bassist)”
― Jess C Scott, EyeLeash: A Blog Novel

“Read the best writers from all different periods; keep your reading of contemporaries in proportion - you do not want a steady diet of contemporary literature. You already belong to your time.”
― Lydia Davis, Essays One

“I called it a baptism in flaming ink that forced me to shed my shyness about recognizing myself as a poet and to accept the fact that life had never given me any choice in the matter. And then I had to discover exactly what that meant.”
― Aberjhani, The American Poet Who Went Home Again

“I searched modern fiction and poetry for clues to how we confronted and evaded reality, how we articulated our experience and turned to language not to revel ourselves but to hide. I was as sure then as I am now that by looking at contemporary Iranian fiction I could gain access to a real understanding of political and social events. (p289)”
― Azar Nafisi, Things I've Been Silent About

“Listen kiddo, by the time you grow up you'll have collected a whole lot of this 'dirt of life' stuff, right, you won't know where it's coming from but it'll pile up, and clothes and pearls won't look as beautiful to you as they do now -- that's for sure. The problem is that dirt, see? You can't ever settle down in one place, you've got to live like you're always, always staring way off into the distance.”
― Banana Yoshimoto, Asleep

“Shortly before school started, I moved into a studio apartment on a quiet street near the bustle of the downtown in one of the most self-conscious bends of the world. The “Gold Coast” was a neighborhood that stretched five blocks along the lake in a sliver of land just south of Lincoln Park and north of River North. The streets were like fine necklaces and strung together were the brownstone houses and tall condominiums and tiny mansions like pearls, and when the day broke and the sun faded away, their lights burned like jewels shining gaudily in the night.
The world’s most elegant bazaar, Michigan Avenue, jutted out from its eastern tip near The Drake Hotel and the timeless blue-green waters of Lake Michigan pressed its shores. The fractious make-up of the people that inhabited it, the flat squareness of its parks and the hint of the lake at the ends of its tree-lined streets squeezed together a domesticated cesspool of age and wealth and standing. It was a place one could readily dress up for an expensive dinner at one of the fashionable restaurants or have a drink miles high in the lounge of the looming John Hancock Building and five minutes later be out walking on the beach with pants cuffed and feet in the cool water at the lake’s edge.”
― Daniel Amory, Minor Snobs

“It was a generation growing in its disillusionment about the deepening recession and the backroom handshakes and greedy deals for private little pots of gold that created the largest financial meltdown since the Great Depression. As heirs to the throne, we all knew, of course, how bad the economy was, and our dreams, the ones we were told were all right to dream, were teetering gradually toward disintegration. However, on that night, everyone seemed physically at ease and exempt from life’s worries with final exams over and bar class a distant dream with a week before the first lecture, and as I looked around at the jubilant faces and loud voices, if you listened carefully enough you could almost hear the culmination of three years in the breath of the night gasp in an exultant sigh as if to say, “Law school was over at last!”
― Daniel Amory, Minor Snobs

“..... this isn't some LA country rock jam reminiscing on the pyschtotropic pot pansies of Haight Ashbury . This is the soot and smut of London mate !”
― Saira Viola

“In his person Gascoigne showed a curious amalgam of classes, high and low. He had cultivated his mind with the same grave discipline with which he now maintained his toilette—which is to say, according to a method that was sophisticated, but somewhat out of date.

He held the kind of passion for books and learning that only comes when one has pursued an education on one’s very own—but it was a passion that, because its origins were both private and virtuous, tended towards piety and scorn. His temperament was deeply nostalgic, not for his own past, but for past ages; he was cynical of the present, fearful of the future, and profoundly regretful of the world’s decay.

As a whole, he put one in mind of a well-preserved old gentleman (in fact he was only thirty-four) in a period of comfortable, but perceptible, decline—a decline of which he was well aware, and which either amused him or turned him melancholy, depending on his moods.”
― Eleanor Catton, The Luminaries

“There is no comparison between the technology of a submarine going across and the unadorned submersible diving deep. This is because our world is firstly about power and only secondly about knowledge.”
― J.M. Ledgard, Submergence

“To push inward is hard, to descend even more so; it challenges our sense of who we are and where we came from. This is why, even though we are inundated with seawater, the advances of our oceanographic agencies do not match those of our space agencies.”
― J.M. Ledgard, Submergence

“Знаєш, як у нас прапор зривали?

- Ну? – не розуміє його Паша.

- Коротше, вони хотіли зірвати, а Ніна не давала. А всі стояли й дивились.

- І шо? – далі не розуміє Паша.

- Ну, коротше, тих, хто зривав, було всього двоє. І одна Ніна. А всі інші просто стояли й дивились, нічого не робили. Всі однакові. Нікого не шкода.”
― Сергій Жадан, Інтернат

“I decided then that love love better be watched closely. So I did just that. Watched to see how everybody did their loving. I have been doing it now all my life, and all I can tell you . . . it is a lesson and a education to watch the way different people love, or don't love, other people.”
― J. California Cooper, Some Soul To Keep

“तुम दहाड़ की फटी आंख में लहू बोना
देखना, ये आसमां गिरगिटों से पहले रंग बदल लेंगे”
― Darshvir Sandhu

“One can brood too much. Nostalgia can fuzz things up.”
― Elizabeth Buchan, Separate Beds

“I met a man. I met a man. I let him throw me raound the bed. And smoked, me, spliffs and choked my neck until I said I was dead. I met a man who took me for walks. Long ones in the country. I offer up. I offer up in the hedge. I met a man I met with her. She and me and his friend to bars at night and drink champagne and bought me chips at every teatime. I met a man with condoms in his pockets. Don't use them. He loves children in his heart. No. I met a man who knew me once. who saw me around when I was a child. Who said you're a fine looking woman now. Who said come back marry me live on my farm. No. I met a man who was a priest I didn't I did. Just as well as many another one would. I met a man. I met a man. who said he'd pay me by the month. who said he'd keep me up in style and I'd be waiting when he arrived. No is what I say. I met a man who hit me a smack. I met a man who cracked my arm. I met a man who said what are you doing out so late at night. I met a man. I met a man. And wash my mouth out with soap. I wish I could. That I did then. I met a man. A stupid thing. I met a man. Should have turned on my heel. I thought. I didn't know to think. I didn't even know to speak. I met a man. I kept on walking. I met a man. I met a man. And I lay down. And slapped and cried and wined and dined. I met a man and many more and I didn't know you at all.”
― Eimear McBride, A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing

“My own mother was evacuated at the age of five during World War Two and my father was a young man working as an ARP warden. This novel is purely fictitious, but I wanted to explore the traumas that many ordinary people of the war generation suffered, experiences which would be quite unimaginable to many of us today and then to contrast them with the issues we all face in the modern day.”
― Deborah Stone, What's Left Unsaid

“Some folks struggled disproportionately, carrying things that others couldn't even lift.”
― Diane Marie Brown, Black Candle Women

“Roxy was bi, and in my opinion she was—and still is—a total badass. Of all my childhood friends, this girl’s my bestie. Even when we were young, I knew deep down that Roxy was going to conquer the world. Her brilliance, coupled with her unwavering commitment to feminism and human rights, made her truly exceptional. And she cared, really cared, about animals and the pressing issues in our world. She wasn’t just one of these people that wore shirts and posted awareness videos online. She dedicated her weekends to protests and taking action. And I loved that she was hooking up with Amren, or whoever this girl was, if she made Roxy happy. I loved her. I loved all of her. Hopefully Amren would see how awesome Roxy was and make her feel special.”
― Kayla Cunningham

“E' sudato. E' sporco di terra. Ha le mani segate dalla fune.
- Visto? - commenta raggiante.
- Fortuna che aveva la corda.
- Non è fortuna. E' preparazione.
- Ah, certo. Preparazione.
In effetti non si può dire che l'Alpinista non sia preparato, per quanto un po' sovrappeso. Metri di cordino arrotolati sulla spalla. Moschettone alla cintura. Zaino tattico. Elmetto da minatore.
- Comunque, è dura prepararsi per tutto. Se scivolando si faceva male...
- Macché scivolando. E' solo allenamento.
- Allenamento? E per che cosa?
- Per il peggio. Come dice il motto: prepararsi per il peggio, pregare per il meglio!
- Ah, molto interessante. Lo sa che io faccio l'esatto contrario?
Preparati, Ciccione. E' il tuo turno di rimanere basito.
- Voglio dire: mi preparo per il meglio, cioè per stare meglio, insomma, una società migliore, e intanto prego che la corda del mondo si spezzi, perché vede, ho l'impressione che sia già piuttosto tirata, e allora non vorrei che cede di schianto e ci troviamo gambe all'aria, tanto vale che si rompe prima, quando ancora non tutto è perduto, capisce?, quindi se l'Occidente vuole suicidarsi, niente in contrario, l'eutanasia mi trova favorevole, purché non la si eserciti sul sottoscritto, che nel frattempo preferisce senz'altro dedicarsi ad altri tipi di eu: l'eudemonia, certo, ma anche l'eupepsia, se vogliamo guardare all'immediato, e l'eugenetica, perché no?, mi offro volontario per qualsiasi esperimento.pag.185
Sono contento di non aver concluso il baratto. Nulla è fatto per essere scambiato, nessuno si fa trapiantare un polmone al posto di un rene. Per questo il sottoscritto è contro ogni salario. Da lavoro dipendente. Da lavoro autonomo. Dal solo fatto di esistere. Quest'ultimo, per carità, mi spetterebbe con gli interessi: per anni si è tratto profitto dal mio corpo, dalle mie relazioni, dai miei desideri, senza degnarsi di pagarmi uno stipendio, un affitto, un contratto d'uso.
La buona notizia è che non passerò a riscuotere. Mi riprendo la vita, e tanti saluti.”
― Wu Ming 2, Guerra agli umani

“I [...] squarely and enthusiastically recommend ['Hey Boy' by A.W.W. Bremont][...]. [...][T]he start of a no doubt stellar oeuvre to come.”
― Dennis Cooper

“In his mind, the person sitting in front of him and the person who gazed adoringly at the back of his head for nine months were one and the same, and for me, the boy with the long wavy hair who made magic out of homework and the man sitting in front of me who made magic out of a funeral were also one and the same person, and suddenly every novel Mrs. Butterfield had me read made perfect sense, because all the great love stories are about two people bringing the story of their yesterdays and the story of their todays into one epic sewn-together poem, and that is what they mean when they say lightning strikes. It’s not when it strikes the first time, it’s when it strikes twice, which hardly ever happens, except, I think, when you fall in love.”
― Tahmima Anam, The Startup Wife

“When writing is music, it interweaves perfumes with rhythms, magic with life, play with love.”
― Leslie Del Re, Springtime's Odyssey: L'Odyssée du Printemps

“Everything is a McApocalypse to those people. They think the sky is falling, but the universe is laughing at them.”
― Michael C. Haymes

“ليس أصعب من أن يحاول الرجل أن يدخل عالم الأنثى ليرى الأحداث من خلال عينيها لأن عالمها هذا مملكة منيعة تحرسها أسوار عالية من الغموض الأنثوي الأزلي من المحال اقتحامها. هذا الغموض سحر تنثره الأنثى حولها ليملأ الرجل بذلك الشعور الغامر بقيمته و رجولته فقط عندما يكون إلى جانبها. و إذا تجرأ على التسلل إلى عالمها سيضيع في فضائه المترامي الأطراف الذي تستطيع وحدها هي أن تخنزله كله بنظرة حانية واحدة أو ابتسامة عابرة أو دمعة هاربة.”
― أحمد رفل الخليل, ‫عودة إلى بغداد: قصة كل مغترب عن وطنه ظلّ يحلم بالعودة و كل مغترب داخل وطنه ظلّ يحلم بالرحيل‬

“That part of west that was full of rocks and full up with sadness in the little sacks grown men develop under their eyes, the accumulation of tears they don't cry as they walk along, shut down, like an out-of-season seaside café.”
― Elaine Feeney, As You Were

“Fill my lungs up with the that sweet, sweet city smog and let me suffocate in a place with bodegas.”
― Laura Hankin, A Special Place for Women

“Contemporary literature is not interested in goodness on a large or even limited scale. When it appears, it is with a note of apology in its hand and has trouble speaking its name.”
― Toni Morrison

“...[W]hile language came readily to Tess when dealing with herself alone, having one-way conversations over all of her choices on her long walks in the woods, or on her way to school, now she no longer tabled these discussions with her husband.”
― Elaine Feeney, How to Build a Boat

“Today poetry is a modestly upwardly mobile, middle-class profession—not as lucrative as waste management or dermatology but several big steps above the squalor of bohemia.”
― Dana Gioia, Can Poetry Matter?: Essays on Poetry and American Culture