Comments by revbrently

  • From Joseph Heller's Catch-22 (ISBN: 9780099529125), p. 208: "That was the most illogical Thanksgiving he could ever remember spending, and his thoughts returned wishfully to his halcyon fourteen-day quarantine in the hospital the year before...

    August 20, 2014

  • From Joseph Keller's Catch-22 (ISBN: 9780099529125), p. 60: "While we waited, he spent each day shuffling rhythmically around the entrance of the operations tent, making boisterous wisecracks to everybody who came by and jocosely calling Sergeant Towser a lousy son of a bitch every time Sergeant Towser popped out of the orderly room."

    August 20, 2014

  • From Joseph Keller's Catch-22, pp. 59-60 (ISBN: 9780099529125): "He could not decide whether to furgle them or photograph them, for he found it impossible to do both simultaneously."

    August 20, 2014

  • From p. 70 of Patrick Leigh Fermor's "A Time to Keep Silence":

    There is no secular power that can hold a monk captive in his cloister; indeed, the anticlerical bias of many governments would consider every desertion as a blow against obscurantism and reactionary forces. But apostasy is very rare.

    January 21, 2014

  • From p. 68 of Patrick Leigh Fermor's "A Time to Keep Silence":

    It seems tragic that a lifetime of ascesis effects no permanent mental extirpation equivalent to the physical extremes of Abelard and Origen and of the Skapetz of the Danube Delta.

    January 21, 2014

  • From pp. 57-58 of Patrick Leigh Fermor's "A Time to Keep Silence":

    The Trappist life...by any normal criterion, is sombre and stern. But legend...has smothered its stark outlines with ivy-leaves of a still more baleful tinct. According to a rumor widespread in France, Trappist monks greet each other daily with the words Frère il faut mourir, and a mythical agendum in the duties of a monk is the digging of his own tomb, a few spadefuls a day... Many aspects of Trappist life lend additional verisimilitude.

    January 21, 2014

  • From p. 39 of Patrick Leigh Fermor's "A Time to Keep Silence":

    Beyond, the grey buildings rose--the tall Norman refectory, The Duke de Stacpoole's fanciful arches, the Gothic quadrangular well of the cloisters, the high stone girdle of the Abbey pierced by the Abbé de Jarente's great doorway, scalloped and rococo.

    January 21, 2014

  • From p. 39 of Patrick Leigh Fermor's "A Time to Keep Silence":

    I spent much of my limitless leisure walking in the country round the Abbey. The forested hills of the demesne are cut up into long zig-zag rides, tunnels of beech that converge upon moss-covered urns supported by a single Doric pillar.

    January 21, 2014

  • From p. 31 of Patrick Leigh Fermor's "A Time to Keep Silence":

    They genuflected together, and the Mass began. Every moment the ceremony gained in splendour. If it was the feast of a great saint, the enthroned abbot was arrayed by his myrmidons in the pontificalia.

    January 21, 2014

  • From p. 30 of Patrick Leigh Fermor's "A Time to Keep Silence":

    For my hosts, the Abbey was a springboard into eternity; for me a retiring place to write a book and spring more efficiently back into the maelstrom.

    January 21, 2014

  • From p. 25 of Patrick Leigh Fermor's "A Time to Keep Silence":

    I found no trace of the Dark Ages here, no hint of necropolitan gloom or bigotry, still less of the ghastly breeziness that is such an embarrassing characteristic of many English clerics. There was no doubt of the respect in which they held the cause to which their lives were devoted; but their company was like that of any civilised well-educated Frenchman, with all the balance, erudition and wit that one expected, the only difference being a gentleness, a lack of haste, and a calmness which is common to the whole community.

    January 21, 2014

  • From p. 25 of Patrick Leigh Fermor's "A Time to Keep Silence":

    Several monks were usually working in the library, reading and writing at the desks, or climbing the ladders in pursuit of recondite knowledge.

    January 21, 2014

  • From p. 24 of Patrick Leigh Fermor's "A Time to Keep Silence":

    Vellum-bound folios and quartos receded in vistas, and thousands of ancient and modern works on theology, canon law, dogma, patrology, patristics, hagiography, mysticism and even magic, and almost as many on secular history, art and travel.

    January 21, 2014

  • From p. 24 of Patrick Leigh Fermor's "A Time to Keep Silence":

    Vellum-bound folios and quartos receded in vistas, and thousands of ancient and modern works on theology, canon law, dogma, patrology, patristics, hagiography, mysticism and even magic, and almost as many on secular history, art and travel.

    January 21, 2014

  • From p. 23 of Patrick Leigh Fermor's "A Time to Keep Silence":

    This new dispensation left nineteen hours a day of absolute and god-like freedom.

    January 21, 2014

  • From p. 24 of Patrick Leigh Fermor's "A Time to Keep Silence":

    The library was beautifully kept, and, considering the Abbey's vicissitudes, enormous.

    January 21, 2014

  • From p. 22 of Patrick Leigh Fermor's "A Time to Keep Silence":

    Then began an extraordinary transformation: this extreme lassitude dwindled to nothing; night shrank to five hours of light, dreamless and perfect sleep, followed by awakenings full of energy and limpid freshness.

    January 21, 2014

  • From p. 22 of Patrick Leigh Fermor's "A Time to Keep Silence":

    Then began an extraordinary transformation: this extreme lassitude dwindled to nothing; night shrank to five hours of light, dreamless and perfect sleep, followed by awakenings full of energy and limpid freshness.

    January 21, 2014

  • From p. 15 of Patrick Leigh Fermor's "A Time to Keep Silence":

    Having finished a flask of Calvados, which I had bought in Rouen, I sat at my desk in a condition of overwhelming gloom and accidie.

    January 21, 2014

  • From p. 14 of Patrick Leigh Fermor's "A Time to Keep Silence":

    The muted light in the church suspended a filament between us, reproducing the exact atmosphere of an early seventeenth-century studio in which--tonsured, waxen, austere and exsanguinous--were bowed in prayer the models of Zurbarán and El Greco.

    January 21, 2014

  • From p. 14 of Patrick Leigh Fermor's "A Time to Keep Silence":

    The muted light in the church suspended a filament between us, reproducing the exact atmosphere of an early seventeenth-century studio in which--tonsured, waxen, austere and exsanguinous--were bowed in prayer the models of Zurbarán and El Greco.

    January 21, 2014

  • From p. 14 of Patrick Leigh Fermor's "A Time to Keep Silence":

    Their eyelids were always downcast; and, if now and then they were raised, no treacherous glint appeared, nothing but a sedulously cultivated calmness, withdrawal and mansuetude and occasionally an expression of remote and burnt-out melancholy.

    January 21, 2014

  • From p. 14 of Patrick Leigh Fermor's "A Time to Keep Silence":

    Their eyelids were always downcast; and, if now and then they were raised, no treacherous glint appeared, nothing but a sedulously cultivated calmness, withdrawal and mansuetude and occasionally an expression of remote and burnt-out melancholy.

    January 21, 2014

  • From p. 13 of Patrick Leigh Fermor's "A Time to Keep Silence":

    ...As I sat at Vespers watching them, now cowled, now uncovered, according to the progress of the liturgy, they appeared preternaturally pale, some of them nearly green.

    January 21, 2014

  • From p. 11 of Patrick Leigh Fermor's "A Time to Keep Silence":

    Here each pair of monks genuflected, inclined their heads one to another, and made their way to opposite stalls.

    January 21, 2014

  • From p. 12 of Patrick Leigh Fermor's "A Time to Keep Silence":

    Back in my cell, I sat down before the new blotter and pens and sheets of clean foolscap.

    January 21, 2014

  • From p. 11 of Patrick Leigh Fermor's "A Time to Keep Silence":

    The recitation had now changed from Latin to French, delivered in the same sepulchral, and, to me, largely unintelligible, monotone.

    January 21, 2014

  • From p. 10 of Patrick Leigh Fermor's "A Time to Keep Silence":

    This hanging pulpit framed the head and shoulders of a monk, reading from a desk by the light of a lamp which hollowed a glowing alcove out of the penumbra.

    January 21, 2014

  • From page 7 of Patrick Leigh Fermor's "A Time to Keep Silence":

    I had spent an abominable night in Rouen...where a procession of

    nightmares had been punctuated by the noise of trains arriving and

    leaving...which, after a week's <b>noctambulism</b> in Paris, turned my night into a period of acute and apparently interminable agony.

    January 21, 2014

  • From Peter Nichols' A Voyage for Madmen (p. 36; ISBN: 978-0-06-095703-2): "Elsewhere in the paper, Chichester, the paterfamilias seadog, was quoted: 'Some of these chaps don't know what they are letting themselves in for. If any of them succeed in getting round it will be remarkable. By comparison the Atlantic is about on the level of a canoe trip across the Serpentine.' "

    May 21, 2013

  • From p. 104 of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby: "Someone with a positive manner, perhaps a detective, used the expression 'madman' as he bent over Wilson's body that afternoon, and the adventitious authority of his voice set the key for the newspaper reports next morning."

    September 29, 2012

  • From p. 96 of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby: "For Daisy was young and her artificial world was redolent of orchids and pleasant, cheerful snobbery and orchestras which set the rhythm of the year, summing up the sadness and suggestiveness of life in new tunes."

    September 29, 2012

  • From p. 83 of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby: "Angry as I was, as we all were, I was tempted to laugh whenever he opened his mouth. The transition from libertine to prig was so complete."

    September 29, 2012

  • From p. 83 of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby: "Angry as I was, as we all were, I was tempted to laugh whenever he opened his mouth. The transition from libertine to prig was so complete."

    September 29, 2012

  • From p. 63 of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby: "He was a son of God--a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that--and he must be about His Father's business, the service of a vast, vulgar and meretricious beauty."

    September 29, 2012

  • From p. 21 of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby: "The intense vitality that had been so remarkable in the garage was converted into impressive hauteur."

    September 29, 2012

  • From p. 15 of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby: "Something was making him nibble at the edge of stale ideas as if his sturdy physical egotism no longer nourished his peremptory heart."

    September 29, 2012

  • From p. 15 of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby: "Of course I knew what they were referring to, but I wasn't even vaguely engaged. The fact that gossip had published the banns was one of the reasons I had come East."

    September 29, 2012

  • From p. 7 of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby: "His speaking voice, a gruff husky tenor, added to the impression of fractiousness he conveyed."

    September 29, 2012

  • From Peter Pan, p. 26: "She was slightly inclined to embonpoint."

    August 19, 2012

  • From Lauren Oliver's "Before I Fall," p. 244: "I take a big swig of beer, wishing I could just go blotto."

    August 10, 2012

  • From Dave Eggers' "Zeitoun," p. 155: "It smelled dirtier every day, a wretched mélange of fish and mud and chemicals."

    August 5, 2012

  • From Dave Eggers' "Zeitoun," p. 128: "The water was filthy now, streaked with oil and spotted with detritus."

    August 4, 2012

  • From p. 11 of Dave Eggers' "Zeitoun":

    "Kathy adjusted her hijab in the front window, tucking in stray hairs -- it was a nervous habit -- while watching Zeitoun leave the driveway in a swirling grey cloud."

    July 29, 2012

  • From p. 25 of Dave Eggers' "Zeitoun":

    "Mahmoud and the rest of the crew dove into the sea just before the planes began strafing."

    July 29, 2012

  • From "Zeitoun" by Dave Eggers (p. 60): "One day the manager of Webster Clothes, a menswear store across the road, had come into the drugstore and, admiring Kathy's ebullient personality, asked her if she'd be willing to quit K&B or, if not, take a second job at Webster."

    July 29, 2012

  • Another example to add: "Noetic refers to knowledge that comes to us directly through our subjective experiences or inner authority. This type of knowledge might take the form of an intuition that helps guide your decisions, or an epiphany that leads you to a creative breakthrough. Moreover, noetic experiences often carry an unusual level of authority that can help guide you to new understandings and new ways of being. Noetic experiences thus differ from the kind of knowledge that comes through reason or the objective study of the external world." From p. 4 of Schlitz, M. M., Vieten, C., & Amorok, T. (2007). Living Deeply: The art & science of transformation in everyday life. New Harbringer Publications; Noetic Books: Oakland, CA.

    June 23, 2012

  • Another example to add: "On the night of their departure from Kvitoya, a dozen or so off-duty deckies gathered in the rec room for a kind of eschatological hootenanny, and soon the entire superstructure was resounding with "Rock of Ages," "Kum-Ba-Yah," "Go Down, Moses," "Amazing Grace," A Mighty Fortress Is Our God," and "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands."" From pp. 355-356 of Morrow, James (1994). Towing Jehovah. New York: Harcourt.

    June 23, 2012

  • Another example to add: "On the night of their departure from Kvitoya, a dozen or so off-duty deckies gathered in the rec room for a kind of eschatological hootenanny, and soon the entire superstructure was resounding with "Rock of Ages," "Kum-Ba-Yah," "Go Down, Moses," "Amazing Grace," A Mighty Fortress Is Our God," and "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands."" From pp. 355-356 of Morrow, James (1994). Towing Jehovah. New York: Harcourt.

    June 23, 2012

  • Another example to add: "Cassie closed her eyes, allowing the spiritual to coil through the her unquiet soul, and by the time the last echo of the last syllable had died away, she knew that no being, supreme or otherwise, had ever received a more sonorous send-off to the dark, icy gates of oblivion." From p. 355 of Morrow, James (1994). Towing Jehovah. New York: Harcourt.

    June 23, 2012

  • Another example:

    "The half-dozen vending machines in the Maracaibo's snack bar dispensed a wide variety of grotesqueries: Hostess Twinkies, Li'l Debbie Snack Cakes, Ring Dings--each item underscoring Oliver's creeping conviction that, with or without a Corpus Dei, Western civilization stood on the brink of collapse."

    From p. 333 of Morrow, James (1994). Towing Jehovah. New York: Harcourt.

    June 22, 2012