Perspectives on Ideas March 9, 2007

Character
34 He [Heathcliff] was a model of a jailer: surly, and dumb and deaf to every attempt at moving his sense of justice or compassion. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.

183 Heathcliff: I have no pity! I have no pity! The more the worms writhe, the more I yearn to crush out their entrails…I grind with greater energy, in proportion to the increase of pain. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.

291 Had his acquaintances been asked, who was the man in London, the surest to perform nothing today which should be remembered on the morrow, they would have thought of Wakefield. Hawthorne, Tales and Sketches

77 “My mother was a woman who invited murder.” Christianson, Fox at the Wood’s Edge: Loren Eiseley

78 “Daisy [his mother] was a woman who never wept; she made others weep.” Christianson, Fox at the Wood’s Edge: Loren Eiseley.

113 The Kennedy style was the triumph, hard-bought and well earned, of a gallant and collected human being over the anguish of life. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days

200 Richard Goodwin…the archetypal New Frontiersman…was the supreme generalist who could turn from Latin America to saving the Nile monuments at Abu Simbel, from civil rights to planning the White House dinner for the Nobel Prize winners, from composing a parody of Norman Mailer to drafting a piece of legislation, from lunching with a Supreme Court Justice to dining with Jean Seberg and at the same time retain an unceasing drive to get things done. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days

669 The combination of self-criticism, wit and ideas made up, I think, a large part of the spirit of the New Frontier. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days

25 …the desire to influence people in almost every way, even for evil. Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise.

25 …he was a slave to his own moods. Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise.

236 Probably more than any concrete vice or failing Amory despised his own personality—he loathed knowing that to-morrow and the thousand days after he would swell pompously at a compliment and sulk at an ill word…. Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise.

242 The chief characteristic of the big man seemed to be a great confidence in himself set off against a tremendous boredom with everything around him. Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise.

159 She’s a pretty girl—anybody responds to that to a certain extent. Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night.

168 The delight in Nicole’s face—to be a feather again instead of a plummet, to float and not to drag. Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night.

263 It had been a hard night but she had the satisfaction of feeling that, whatever Dick’s previous record was, they now possessed a moral superiority over him for as long as he proved of any use. Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night.

268 He’s different, he thinks of others. Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night.

297 …you used to want to create things—now you seem to want to smash them up. Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night.

318 Dick’s bitterness had surprised Rosemary, who had thought of him as all-forgiving, all comprehending. Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night.

321 “Why, I’m almost complete…. I’m practically standing alone, without him.” Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night.

5 The business of her [Mrs. Bennet’s] life was to get her daughters married; its solace was visiting and news. Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice.

10 Mr. Darcy soon drew the attention of the room by his fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien; and the report which was in general circulation within five minutes after his entrance, of his having ten thousand a year. Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice.