The Summer Cannibals Quotes

Beyond the silver span of the motor bridge lay basins of cracked mud the size of ballrooms - models of a state of mind, a curvilinear labyrinth. ~ J.G. Ballard

In the midst of winter, I find within me the invisible summer ... ~ Leo Tolstoy

They peered at him with their shining honey warm molasses-brown eyes. Their smiles, the white smiles pinned to their faces, were wide as all of summer. ~ Ray Bradbury

The hills below crouched on all fours under the weight of the rainforest where liana grew and soldier ants marched in formation. Straight ahead they marched, shamelessly single-minded, for soldier ants have no time for dreaming. Almost all of them are women and there is so much to do - the work is literally endless. So many to be born and fed, then found and buried. There is no time for dreaming. The life of their world requires organization so tight and sacrifice so complete there is little need for males and they are seldom produced. When they are needed, it is deliberately done by the queen who surmises, by some four-million-year-old magic she is heiress to, that it is time. So she urges a sperm from the private womb where they were placed when she had her one, first and last copulation. Once in life, this little Amazon trembled in the air waiting for a male to mount her. And when he did, when he joined a cloud of others one evening just before a summer storm, joined colonies from all over the world gathered fro the marriage flight, he knew at last what his wings were for. Frenzied, he flied into the humming cloud to fight gravity and time in order to do, just once, the single thing he was born for. Then he drops dead, having emptied his sperm into his lady-love. Sperm which she keeps in a special place to use at her own discretion when there is need for another dark and singing cloud of ant folk mating in the air. Once the lady has collected the sperm, she too falls to th ~ Toni Morrison

The Black Death was a faithful visitor to Florence. It arrived, on average, once every ten years, always in the summer. ~ Ross King

This conviction brought me, in the summer of 1978, to the Free Trade Unions - formed by a group of courageous and dedicated people who came out in the defense of the workers' rights and dignity. ~ Lech Walesa

It wasn't Dean's fault," Allie insists. "Seriously, it's all on me. I freaked out for no reason." She finally looks over at me. "See? This is why I don't like horror movies! You watch one scary movie when you're a kid and suddenly everyone who comes to your door is a serial killer."

"Are you kidding me right now? You'll watch a horror movie with my sister but not me? We have to watch the cancer movie?"

"Dicky," Summer chides. "You're being grumpy."

I glare at my sister with enough force to make her wince. "Not one word out of you," I snap. "And don't think I didn't feel you kick me right before I passed out. Who does that, Summer? Who kicks a man when he's down?"

From the corner of my eye, I see Tucker sink to the floor. He buries his face in his hands, shaking with laughter.

The EMT blocks my line of sight by squatting in front of me. "I need to examine you for a concussion."

Oh for fuck's sake. ~ Elle Kennedy

That whole summer in Colorado was a data-gathering bust, but it taught me the most important thing I know about science: that experiments are not about getting the world to do what you want it to do. While tending to my wounds that fall, I shaped a new and better goal out of the debris of the disaster. I would study plants in a new way - not from the outside, but from the inside. I would figure out why they did what they did and try to understand their logic, which must serve me better than simply defaulting to my own, I decided. Every ~ Hope Jahren

Outside there's a chill in the air that reminds me autumn is on the way, even though it's still only September. This time of year is my absolute favourite; the leaves start to turn golden and wither away after their summer of hard work, and the sun seems to shine a lot more clearly as the mist from the summer heat disappears. Everything just seems a little brighter and fresher--a clean slate. That's exactly what I need. ~ Zoe Sugg

We will enjoy ourselves with the forms that are given us: a human face, a hand, the breast of a woman or the body of a man, a glad or sorrowful expression, the infinite seas, the wild rocks, the melancholy language of the black trees in the snow, the wild strength of spring flowers and the heavy lethargy of a hot summer day when Pan, our old friend, sleeps and the ghosts of midday whisper. This alone is enough to make us forget the grief of the world, or to give it form. ~ Max Beckmann

I thought of summer as the living time; the rest of the year was the backward time, the writing time ~ Gabrielle Zevin

When I was 14, I played in a summer league. One night the chief umpire asked me if I would like to try umpiring. There was a Little League tournament coming up and he needed more umpires than he had. ~ Jim Evans

The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco ~ Mark Twain

The Bible is a warm letter of affection from a parent to a child; and yet there are many who see chiefly the severer passages. As there may be fifty or sixty nights of gentle dews in one summer, that will not cause as much remark as one hailstorm of half an hour, so there are those who are more struck by those passages of the Bible that announce the indignation of God than by those that announce His affection. ~ Thomas De Witt Talmage

The aster has not wasted spring and summer because it has not blossomed. It has been all the time preparing for what is to follow, and in autumn it is the glory of the field, and only the frost lays it low. So there are many people who must live forty or fifty years, and have the crude sap of their natural dispositions changed and sweetened before the blossoming time can come; but their lives have not been wasted. ~ Henry Ward Beecher

Do you want to achieve something or do you just want to make money?" asked a nearby man in a white shirt to another man in a striped shirt. I waited for the answer as I slowly walked past them.
"Why is it an either or question?" the man in the striped shirt finally murmured philosophically under a sip of beer. They both stood there looking at each other in thought. ~ Daniel Amory

And me, standing under the splintered night,
catching fractured glimpses into the black behind the black,
hearing the prayers of stars, the angry whispers of the dark summer night.

Its voice cracks,
on your name.

My eyes close,
on your name. ~ Marlen Komar

There was the sun, letting down great glowing masses of heat; there was life, active and snarling, moving about them like a fly swarm - the dark pants of smoke from the engine, a crisp "all aboard!" and a bell ringing. Confusedly Maury saw eyes in the milk train staring curiously up at him, heard Gloria and Anthony in quick controversy as to whether he should go to the city with her, then another clamor and she was gone and the three men, pale as ghosts, were standing alone upon the platform while a grimy coal-heaver went down the road on top of a motor truck, carolling hoarsely at the summer morning. CHAPTER ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

How bravely Autumn paints upon the sky The gorgeous fame of Summer which is fled! ~ Thomas Hood

I remembered all the Christmases we'd celebrated, always with a huge tree, situated next to the staircase where I now sat. As a child, I'd sat upon that same step, huddled up against the balus- ters, studying the tree, its shape and decorations; enthralled by the magical light and shadows upon the walls around me. Dancing. Over Christmas the only light in the hallway had come from the silver candelabra burning on the hallway table. But on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day night small candles were attached to the branches of the tree, their soft light reflected in the vast chande- lier suspended high above and thrown back across the walls like stars across the universe. I remembered the smell, that mingling of pine and wax and burning logs: the smell of home, the smell of happiness. I'd sat there in my nightgown, listening to the chime of crystal; the laughter, music and voices emanating from another room, an adult world I could only imagine. And always hoping for a glimpse of Mama, as she whooshed across the marble floor, beautiful, resplendent . . . invincible. ~ Judith Kinghorn

He would rather know what's outside, see the summer in its sad blowing wreckage, than cower behind the blind and wonder what the damage is. - Thomas Cromwell - Wolf Hall ~ Hilary Mantel

I came up with a new reason
To write your name today
I plagiarized each letter
From a love note you wrote me.
The scent of ink was sacred to me
In that relapsed moment…
For a minute I could pretend
The paper reminded me of your skin;
I could pretend the glimmering ink
Was the moonlit lake
Of our summer night.
But the pretending crumpled with paper
And I threw us into the trash can
For the bridge between us is long burned
And it's time I accepted that. ~ Justin Wetch

Before the autumn of our years, there exists a time when we struggle to reconcile what we are with what we wish to be. This time can be known as summer. After spring gives us life, before winter takes it away. ~ H.L. Sudler

Am I a slacker? I can be a slacker. When I was in college, most people got summer jobs for college or did research during college. I went home and watched TV the whole day for three months; it was really awesome. ~ Luis Von Ahn

You know,ever since I saw you in the bar that afternoon, I've been fantasizing about doing something."
"Doing what?" His voice was soft.
"This."I moved so that we were face to face. Our eyes met for a brief moment, and then I was leaning forward so that our mouths touched for the first time.
His eyes had darkened to the color of a summer night's sky, that almost-purple shade right before the stars came out. His lips curved up into a wicked smile that made things in my stomach tighten.
"What a coincidence. I've been thinking the exact same thing. ~ M.S. Parker

For some, autumn comes early, stays late through life where October follows September and November touches October and then instead of December and Christ's birth, there is no Bethlehem Star, no rejoicing, but September comes again and old OCtober and so on down the years, with no winter, spring, or revivifying summer. FOr these beings, fall is the ever normal season, the only weather, there be no choice beyond. Where do they come from? The dust. Where do they go? The grave. Does blood stir their veins? No: the night wind. What ticks in their head? The worm. What speaks from their mouth? The toad. What sees from their eye? The snake. What hears with their ear? The abyss between the stars. They sift the human storm for souls, eat flesh of reason, fill tombs with sinners. They frenzy forth. In gusts they beetle-scurry, creep, thread, filter, motion, make all moons sullen, and surely cloud all clear-run waters. THe spider-web hears them, trembles--breaks. Such are the autumn people. Beware of them. ~ Ray Bradbury

I am hoping to film another ad in the summer for Carte Noire. ~ David Ginola

The Boys of Summer were heroes in Brooklyn for a full postwar decade partly because the players could not entertain higher offers. ~ George Vecsey

Snegiryov, fussing and bewildered, ran after the coffin in his old, short, almost summer coat, bare-headed, with his old wide-brimmed felt hat in his hand. He was in some sort of insoluble anxiety, now reaching out suddenly to support the head of the coffin, which only interfered with the bearers, then running alongside to see if he could find a place for himself. A flower fell on the snow, and he simply rushed to pick it up, as if God knows what might come from the loss of this flower. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

When I look at what I'm doing today, I see [the] roots in my college life. I was the online editor of my college paper and an active member of the Harvard Computer Society. I abandoned a summer internship at the Washington Post due to injury and instead did theatre. I found my comedic voice through satirical newsletters in college. ~ Baratunde Thurston

I'd love to wake up to complete silence, white sheets, and the smell of crisp air and roses. ~ Maria Elena

A man dies and his skin loses heat like the sand on a summer evening. It makes you feel like warming him up. ~ Erri De Luca

When I told you I wanted to try, I spoke the truth. When I turned away, it was for my former court, and when I tried to make another faery love me, it was for that court. I've lived for my whole life trying to bring the Summer Court back to the strength it once was. In all of those years, in centuries , I've only wished myself free of duty because of one reason. You. ~ Melissa Marr

Everything seemed to grow blacker as I sat there, except for the fireflies whose tiny pulsing lights drew arcs through the dark summer air. On off . . . on off . . . on off . . . on off. The longer I stared, the dizzier I got, until I felt as if the world was tipping and pitching me forward down the mountainside into the long throat of the night. ~ Ruth Ozeki

To me, the summer wind in the Midwest is one of the most melancholy things in all life. It comes from so far away and blows so gently and yet so relentlessly; it rustles the leaves and the branches of the maple trees in a sort of symphony of sadness, and it doesn't pass on and leave them still. It just keeps coming, like the infinite flow of Old Man River. You could
and you do
wear out your lifetime on the dusty plains with that wind of futility blowing in your face. And when you are worn out and gone, the wind
still saying nothing, still so gentle and sad and timeless
is still blowing across the prairies, and will blow in the faces of the little men who follow you, forever. ~ Ernie Pyle

The Montreux Palace Hotel was built in an age when it was thought that things would last. It is on the very shores of Switzerland's Lake Geneva, its balconies and iron railings look across the water, its yellow-ocher awnings are a touch of color in the winter light. It is like a great sanitarium or museum. There are Bechstein pianos in the public rooms, a private silver collection, a Salon de Bridge. This is the hotel where the novelist Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov and his wife, Véra, live. They have been here for 14 years. One imagines his large and brooding reflection in the polished glass of bookcases near the reception desk where there are bound volumes of the Illustrated London News from the year 1849 to 1887, copies of Great Expectations, The Chess Games of Greco and a book called Things Past, by the Duchess of Sermoneta.

Though old, the hotel is marvelously kept up and, in certain portions, even modernized. Its business now is mainly conventions and, in the summer, tours, but there is still a thin migration of old clients, ancient couples and remnants of families who ask for certain rooms when they come and sometimes certain maids. For Nabokov, a man who rode as a child on the great European express trains, who had private tutors, estates, and inherited millions which disappeared in the Russian revolution, this is a return to his sources. It is a place to retire to, with Visconti's Mahler and the long-dead figures of La Belle Epoque, Edward VII, d'Annunzi ~ James Salter

It was the American middle class. No one's house cost more than two or three year's salary, and I doubt the spread in annual wages (except for the osteopath) exceeded more than five thousand dollars. And other than the doctor (who made house calls), the store managers, the minister, the salesman, and the banker, everyone belonged to a union. That meant they worked a forty-hour week, had the entire weekend off (plus two to four weeks' paid vacation in the summer), comprehensive medical benefits, and job security. In return for all that, the country became the most productive in the world and in our little neighborhood it meant your furnace was always working, your kids could be dropped off at the neighbors without notice, you could run next door anytime to borrow a half-dozen eggs, and the doors to all the homes were never locked
because who would need to steal anything if they already had all that they needed? ~ Michael Moore

A cloud-congested caul that is alternately red, orange, vermilion, purple. Sometimes the clouds break apart in great, slow rafts, letting through beams of innocent yellow sunlight that are bitterly nostalgic for the summer that has gone by. ~ Stephen King

If you have lived in cities and have walked in the park on a summer afternoon, you have perhaps seen, blinking in a corner of his iron cage, a huge, grotesque kind of monkey, a creature with ugly, sagging, hairless skin below his eyes and a bright purple underbody. This monkey is a true monster. In the completeness of his ugliness he achieved a kind of perverted beauty. Children stopping before the cage are fascinated, men turn away with an air of disgust, and women linger for a moment, trying perhaps to remember which one of their male acquaintances the thing in some faint way resembles. ~ Sherwood Anderson

My American home is L.A., which is the ultimate city for 365 days of summer. ~ Curtis Stone