Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
Back in Brooklyn, a poet-nurse to the Union dying writes: A leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars. Jørgen never reads these words.
Richard Powers • The Overstory: A Novel
Apart he stalked in joyless reverie … With pleasure drugged, he almost longed for woe, And e’en for change of scene would seek the shades below.16fn1 There was in him a vital scorn of all … He stood a stranger in this breathing world … So much he soared beyond, or sunk beneath, The men with whom he felt condemned to breathe …17
Isaiah Berlin • The Roots of Romanticism
“You can talk like that for another hundred years. I can only laugh at it.” “Do not laugh. Do not laugh.” “Because you do not know me. Because you do not know who I am. Who Franz Biberkopf is. He’s not afraid of anything. I’ve got fists. Just look here at these muscles of mine.”
Alfred Döblin • Berlin Alexanderplatz
The gaunt, white-skinned figure with a bruised forehead standing awkwardly in an over-large business suit looked totally unconvincing, like a discharged convict in his release suit blinking at the unfamiliar daylight after a long prison-sentence.
J. G. Ballard • High-Rise: A Novel
Here we can live; we can also die, just as it pleases us; nobody will stop us.
Christiane Ritter • A Woman in the Polar Night (Pushkin Press Classics)
