Quotes from Trevanian

The effect of this was to make me abjure hackneyed expressions from an early age, so I suppose I benefited from my mother's phrasal insouciance in the long run, although it's possible that my automatic eschewal of clichés occasionally drove me from the Scylla of ridicule into the turbid Charybdisian eddies of sesquipedalian obfuscation...though I trust not.

Why did I submit myself to the butchery of the trenches when I might have served in the echelons as a medical officer? Even the most rudimentary knowledge of Doctor Freud would suggest that I was pursuing a death wish

Dünyada iki tip insan vard?r evlat. Senin gibiler ve bizim gibiler.

Ä°ÅŸler ne kadar kötü giderse, o kadar iÅŸin içine girersiniz. Ä°ÅŸler iyi gidince de, bu sefer de iÅŸin içine giremezsiniz. Ä°ÅŸte bu kadar!

The years passed unnoticed and unremembered, and one autumn morning I found myself suddenly forty-five years old. It was a time for weighing youthful hopes against mature accomplishment, for it was quite certain that I had by then done all I was ever going to do. Sitting alone at my desk that evening of my forty-fifth birthday I asked that least original of introspective questions: Where had it all gone? And the somewhat less banal question: What, after all, had it been? My

Mother used to shape and score the Spam, arrange the rings of pineapple, then pour a little maple syrup over it and bake it so that it came out looking almost exactly like a miniature glazed ham, and we used to have it with yams on which we melted margarine.

Zevk, okuma ve rahatl?k yeterliydi Nicholai için. (...) EÄŸlence gibi bir uyuÅŸturucu maddeye de gereksinim duymuyordu.

The poet in Le Cagot had confected for himself the role of the miles gloriosus, the Falstaffian clown—but with a unique difference: his braggadocio was founded on a record of reckless, laughing courage in numberless guerrilla actions against the fascist who oppressed his people in Spain.

Short first pregnancies do not occasion criticism in our valley, for it is widely known that the good Lord often makes first pregnancies mercifully brief as His reward to the girl for having preserved her chastity until marriage. Subsequent pregnancies, however, usually run their full terms, which only makes sense, as the very fact that they are not first pregnancies means that the mother was not chaste at the moment of conception.

She often said, and honestly believed, that she was not prejudiced—well, except in the case of Italian mobsters and drunken Irish loafers and stupid Poles and snooty Yankee Protestants, but then who wasn't?

Hepimiz kar??m?zdakinin bizi anlamas?n? isteriz ama, ayna gibi içimiz d???m?z görünsün istemeyiz.

Dansta) Erkek iÅŸin çerçevesidir ama kad?n çerçevenin içindeki resimdir.

basso ostinado

Confession is good for the soul, it empties the soul making more space for sin.

Ergo, the wise man achieves the balance by reducing his needs to the level of his possessions. And this is best done by learning to value the free things of life: the mountains, laughter, poetry, wine offered by a friend, older and fatter women.

Generalization is flawed thinking only when applied to individuals.

body space was so tight that Nature had to double up on functions, why didn't She have us smell with our fingertips or hear with our elbows—anything to save some special part of the body for the performance of this sublime act? (Perhaps the belly button, which seemed to have no very urgent function assigned to it.) Something wasn't right here. Either my mother was wrong about the loftiness of love-making, or Nature was playing a cruel joke.

orhiko choria orhin laket / orhy ku?lar? ancak orhy'de mutlu olur

Gardiyan elindeki tepside a??r bir çaydanl?k ve iki kulpsuz Japon fincan?yla girdi. Çay? bardaklara sarsak hareketlerle, evcil bir ay?ym?? gibi boÅŸaltt?. Sanki zarafetten nasibi olmamak erkekliÄŸin kan?t?ym?? gibi.

intentioned myth.

The mindless voters of this country are wrong to worry about the dangers of the CIA's internal corruption. When they bring this nation to disaster, it won't be through their villainy; it will be because of their bungling.

He experienced that thrilling social vertigo that accompanies total freedom in a context of pointlessness.

Once severed from the future, the past becomes an insignificant parade of trivial events, no longer organic, no longer potent or painful.

Nicholai bir y?l boyunca olup bitenin fark?na varmad?. Günlük yaÅŸam? bir sürü küçük olaylarla noktalan?p ölçülüyor, cezaevi d???ndaki yaÅŸamla da hiçbir ilgisi kalmam?? bulunuyordu. Hiçbir zaman can? s?k?lmam??t?. Fizik kurallar?na ters görünen bir ilke vard? çünkü. Zaman ancak, içi boÅŸ olduÄŸu zaman a??rd?.