Lines and scenes

There are times I feel something, but can't put it to words. Then I read something that makes me think, that's what I felt for a long time. That's why its easier to quote them, as they say it better than I can. I keep a text file of those things and scenes that affect me, so excuse another quotes post.

from Paul Theroux's The Consul's File:

The person who appears to have no secret seems to be hiding something; yet there is a simpler explanation for this apparent deception— there probably isn't any secret. We tend to see mystery in emptiness, but I knew from Africa that emptiness is more than just that: behind it is a greater emptiness.
- - -
It made me suspicious of everyone I met, and realized the sort of double life people led— and had proof of it— I felt rather inadequate myself. What was my life? My job, my nationals, my files: hardly enough. I wasn't a character; it was other people who matter, not me. I've always been amused by novelists who write autobiographically: the credulous self-promotion, the limited vision, the display of style. Other people's lives are so much more interesting than one's own. I am an unrepentant eavesdropper and I find anonymity a consolation.
- - -
Fiction is so often fatal— it hallows some places and makes them look like dreamland: New York, London, Paris- like the label of an expensive suit.

Some of my favorite scenes from a manga and a book, Deadman Wonderland and Chuck Palahniuk's Rant.

BANG! Genkaku shoots someone in the face. Someone afar shouts, "What is that sound?" and  Genkaku replies, "Nothing, just the sound of a red flower blooming."

Tina: Your girlfriend you like so much, she fucks for money. Your little girlfriend is a gaddamn whore.
Rant: Is that true?
Echo: Is what true?
Rant: What she said. Are you really my girlfriend?

And that's for today.