THIS PART

"Please be serious with me," she cried.
He opened his palms. "This part of my life isn't serious."
"Which part is?"
"There is no other part."
She fled.
(Jonathan Lethem | You Don't Love Me Yet)

LA

Los Angeles was the largest inhabited abandoned city on earth.
(Jonathan Lethem | You Don't Love Me Yet)

DEEP AND THE SURFACES

"Only, as a good friend of mine used to say, you can't be deep without a surface."
(Jonathan Lethem | You Don't Love Me Yet)

VISIBLE, ETCETERA

"I'd make some joke about how difficult it is for us imaginary friends," he said. "The constant struggle to remain visible, etcetera. But the truth is I think it's you guy [...] who are figments of my imagination."
(Jonathan Lethem | You Don't Love Me Yet)

SLOWLY

When a whale dies, it falls down through the ocean slowly, over the course of a day. All the other fish see it fall, like a giant statue, like a building, but slowly, slowly.
(Miranda July | The Shared Patio)

POSITIVE

What is the most terrifying thing that has ever happened to you? Did it involve a car? Was it on a boat? Did an animal do it? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then I’m not surprised. Car crash, boat sink, and animal are just scary. Why not do yourself a favor and stay away from these things?
(Miranda July | The Shared Patio)

NOT

He did not call. He had not called. There was no call.
(Jonathan Lethem | You Don’t Lover Me Yet)

RARE

They’d become that rarest version of themselves, uncomplainers.
(Jonathan Lethem | You Don’t Lover Me Yet)

ORDINARY

He crossed the grain of ordinary life, deliriously indifferent.
(Jonathan Lethem | You Don't Love Me Yet)

RIM

The April night was clear and warm and smelled of lime and fir, like the desert's rim, the place you'd reach in a day if you walked east out of the city, which you'd never do.
(Jonathan Lethem | You Don't Love Me Yet)

ANYTHING BUT

They'd discuss anything but what they really felt, the silently expanding center of the universe.
(Jonathan Lethem | You Don't Love Me Yet)

HELLISHINE

Let the hellish sunshine makes its case, the previous night wasn't finished.
(Jonathan Lethem | You Don't Love Me Yet)

NOT NOT

"I'm not nervous, but then again I'm not not nervous," he said, without turning. "I find I actually don't want to disappoint you."
"You don't."
"Or be disappointed."
(Jonathan Lethem | You Don't Love Me Yet)

A GOOD IDEA

"I want to see you," she said.
"I don't know if that's a good idea."
"I need to."
"I'm free tomorrow night."
(Jonathan Lethem | You Don't Love Me Yet)

SECRETS FROM YOURSELF

"I guess the best secrets from yourself are the ones that even if someone else tells them to you, you still don't know them."
"Sure".
(Jonathan Lethem | You Don't Love Me Yet)

BEAUTIFUL CATASTROPHE

"She was the kind of beautiful woman who makes other women angry," he said. "They'd see her and begin accidentally breaking stuff or getting stomachaches and needing to go home. She was a kind of beautiful catastrophe in that way. She'd ruin parties."
(Jonathan Lethem | You Don't Love Me Yet)

A PARTY

"It's going to be a dance party," said Falmouth. "Only the rule is you can't bring anyone you know. And you have to wear headphones. You have to listen to whatever you prefer to dance to, your own mix. [...] What I want is a sea of dancing bodies, each to their own private music. I might call it Party of Strangers. Or maybe Aparty, like apart, y."
(Jonathan Lethem | You Don't Love Me Yet)

ABRASION

Monkeys dripped from distant palms, more fruit than creature, refusing to dance. A coyote exasperated the limits of his cage, sniffing distance from hills he might have known. Turtles pedaled in dust. The zoo was an abrasion, Los Angele's arid skeleton poking into evidence.
(Jonathan Lethem | You Don't Love Me Yet)

MY PROBLEM

"My problem is I don't believe in the place where the sentences came from anymore."
(Jonathan Lethem | You Don't Love Me Yet)

THIS CONDITION

"My eyes destroy you."
"What?"
"I have this condition called monster eyes. I find something not to like and it becomes enormous, it becomes the whole world. Once it was a woman's fingernails. I started to think they were too weird and short and stubby, and then it was all I could think about. I tried encouraging her to work on her cuticles, to push them up - am I disgusting you?"
"No."
(Jonathan Lethem | You Don't Love Me Yet)

THE BOX

"This white box is everything i can't stand about contemporary everything"
(Jonathan Lethem | You Don't Love Me Yet)

STABILITA´

[...] la verita´ era un insieme di strati che si possono sbucciare quando una relazione ha assunto la stabilita´ [...]
(Rick Moody | Demonology)

IL SETTIMO ANNO

[...] Non sei capace di rimanere in tema, tu divaghi e tracimi, mi diceva, nel bar dell´Upper East Side, nel settimo anno del nostro groviglio [...]
(Rick Moody | Demonology)

IN CASA

Maschietti entrano in casa angosciati; litigano. I maschietti sono brutti, sono dei perdenti, nessuno mai gli vorra´ bene, entrano in casa.
(Rick Moody | Demonology)

FOREVER

I intend to live forever, or die trying.
(Groucho Marx)