187 12:26:00 PM

September in Moscow is sated and indolent, trimmed with gold brocade and ruddy cheeked with the maple’s crimson blush, like a merchant’s wife from the Zamoskvorechie district decked out in her finest. If one marries on the final Sunday of the month the sky is certain to be a translucent azure and the sun will shine with a sedate delicacy, so that the groom will not perspire in his tight starched collar and close-fitting black tailcoat, nor will the bride freeze in that gauzy, ethereal, enchanting concoction for which no appropriate name even exists.

Choosing the church in which to celebrate the wedding is an entire science in itself. Thanks be to God, in golden-domed Moscow the choice is extensive, but that merely increases the responsibility of the decision. The genuine old-time Muscovite knows it is good to get married on Sretenka Street, in the Church of the Assumption in Pechatniki, for then husband and wife will share a long life together and die on the same day. The church most auspicious for the generation of numerous offspring is St. Nicholas of the Great Cross, which has extended across an entire city block in the Kitai-Gorod district. Those who prize quiet comfort and domesticity above all else should choose St. Pimen the Great in Starye Vorotniki. If the groom is a military gentleman, who nonetheless does not wish to end his days on the battlefield but close to the home hearth in the bosom of his family, then the wisest thing to do would be to take the marriage vows in the Church of St. George on Vspolie Street. And, of course, no loving mother would ever allow her daughter to marry on Varvarka Street, in the church of the holy martyr Varvara, which would doom the poor soul to a lifetime of torment and suffering.

'The Winter Queen', Boris Akunin

186 12:27:00 AM

The question that naturally arises, of course, is whether this land wants a voice. A distinguishing feature of America is that it has never had a voice; it has a lot of hoopdedoo but no voice, and that's the way we like it.

E. B. White, 'The New Yorker' 11/9/48

185 9:15:00 PM

'And this brings me to the story of his love.

'I suppose you think it is a story that you can imagine for yourselves. We have heard so many such stories, and the majority of us don't believe them to be stories of love at all. For the most part we look upon them as stories of opportunities: episodes of passion at best, or perhaps only of youth and temptation, doomed to forgetfulness in the end, even if they pass through the reality of tenderness and regret.'

'Lord Jim', Joseph Conrad

184 2:35:00 AM

Ideology was like a set of enormous wheels at the back of the stage, turning and setting in motion wars, revolutions, reforms. The wheels of imagology turn without having any effect upon history. Ideologies fought with each other, and each of them was capable of filling a whole epoch with its thinking. Imagology organizes peaceful alternation of its systems in lively seasonal rhythms. In Paul’s words: ideology belonged to history, while the reign of imagology begins where history ends.

'Immortality', Milan Kundera

183 2:34:00 PM

Zen had given some thought to the question of how Reto Gurtner should speak, eventually deciding against funny accents or deliberate mistakes. It would be typically Swiss, he decided, to speak pedantically correct Italian, but slowly and heavily, as though all the words were equal citizens and it was invidious and undemocratic to emphasize some at the expense of others.

'Vendetta', Michael Dibdin

182 7:29:00 PM

Where national memories are concerned, griefs are of more value than triumphs, for they impose duties, and require a common effort.

'What Is a Nation?', Ernest Renan, in 'Nation and Narration'

181 1:27:00 PM

Quando una fede testardamente vissuta incontra le lettere, ciò che ne nasce è quasi sempre qualcosa di grandioso, nel bene o nel male.

'Q', Luther Blissett

180 5:25:00 PM

Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither is in my opinion safe.

Edmund Burke

179 4:17:00 PM

Last year, the psychologist Oliver James, in his book 'Britain on the Couch'…concluded that TV was a prime contributing factor to what he called the 'low serotonin society'. 'It has encouraged undiscounted upward comparison, lowering the esteem of men and women as regards their attractiveness, and encouraged unrealistic standards thereof.'

White Dot puts it rather more simply: TV is boring, addictive, and it makes you feel like shit. So chuck it out.

Ian Sansom, 'The Guardian' 12/6/98, discussing 'Get a Life!' by David Burke and Jean Lotus of White Dot

178 1:10:00 PM

Thus at the age of twenty-seven
A promising career was over,
And the thirty or forty years that had elapsed
Had been spent in killing time – or so Lord Richard thought,
Though in reality, killing time
Is only the name for another of the multifarious ways
By which time kills us.

'Poems about people, or, England reclaimed', Osbert Sitwell

177 5:03:00 PM

‘I wouldn’t ask too much of her,’ I ventured. ‘You can’t repeat the past.’

‘Can’t repeat the past?’ he cried incredulously. ‘Why of course you can!’

He looked around him wildly, as if the past were lurking here in the shadow of his house, just out of reach of his hand.

'The Great Gatsby', F. Scott Fitzgerald

176 3:56:00 PM

The sounds of laziness rose from the sleepy city. The dust was hot and glistened in the sunlight.

'Samarkand', Amin Maalouf

175 9:08:00 PM

Quant à Emma, elle ne s’interrogea point pour savoir si elle l’aimait. L’amour, croyait-elle, devait arriver tout à coup, avec de grands éclats et des fulgurations, – ouragan des cieux qui tombe sur la vie, la bouleverse, arrache les volontés commes des feuilles et emporte à l’abîme le cœur entier. Elle ne savait pas que, sur la terrasse des maisons, la pluie fait des lacs quand les gouttières sont bouchées, et elle fût ainsi demeurée en sa sécurité, lorsque’elle découvrit subitement une lézarde dans le mur.

'Madame Bovary', Gustave Flaubert

174 2:41:00 PM

Now, the truth is, that tape recorder was more than nostalgia. ... I suppose tapes, likes photographs and videos, are a desperate attempt to steal something from death's suitcase.

'Tuesdays with Morrie', Mitch Albom

173 7:39:00 PM

Some people will never learn anything, for this reason, because they understand everything too soon.

Alexander Pope

172 7:17:00 PM

The present contains all that there is. It is holy ground; for it is the past, and it is the future.

'The Aims of Education and Other Essays', Alfred North Whitehead

171 7:40:00 PM

Integrity is something more than a charming sentiment to which we feel we ought to aspire. It is the only reliable and responsible connection between ourselves and the world around us.

David Puttnam

170 6:26:00 PM

'There exists,' Lestrade said, 'a certain dreadful energy. A certain instinct for cheerful intrusion that no doubt is seen as helpful. Helping other people out from under the weight of their illusions. Even if these illusions are thousands of years old and have produced much that is beautiful. Even if they represent the creative force of a race.'

'Damascus Gate', Robert Stone

169 3:23:00 PM

En l’espace de quelques minutes, je sentis que s’installait en moi une espèce de vide ; mais il s’agissait d’un vide prévisible, attendu.

'La possibilité d'une île', Michel Houellebecq

168 5:16:00 PM

'Seulement, il faut du temps pour être heureux. Beaucoup de temps. Le bonheur lui aussi est une longue patience. Et dans presque tous les cas, nous usons notre vie à gagner de l’argent, quand il faudrait, par l’argent, gagner son temps.'

'La mort heureuse', Albert Camus