Цитаты из книги Dio di illusioni

It was months before the gloss and mystery of newness, which keep me from seeing them with much objectivity, would wear entirely off - though their reality was far more interesting than any idealized version could possibly be - but it is here, in my memory, that they cease being totally foreign and begin to appear, for the first time, in shapes very like their bright old selves.

…Head thrown back, throat to the stars, “more like deer than human being.” To be absolutely free!

“We’re all a lot better off.” “Some of us are, you mean.” Henry smiled acidly. “Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “Πελλαιου βους μεγας ειν Αιδη.” This was something to the effect that, in the Underworld, a great ox costs only a penny, but I knew what he meant and in spite of myself, I laughed.There was a tradition among the ancients that things were very cheap in Hell.

He had found that, in his experience – coming to terms with the decision was the agonising part. When it was finally time to act, it was invariably an easy decision; almost a relief.

бурные эмоции были противны его натуре, и вполне обычные по современным меркам проявления чувств казались ему шокирующим эксгибиционизмом

Once, over dinner, Henry was quite startled to learn from me than men had walked on the moon. “No,” he said, putting down his fork. “It’s true,” chorused the rest, who had somehow managed to pick this up along the way. “I don’t believe it.” “I saw it,” said Bunny. “It was on television.” “How did they get there? When did this happen?"

“But how,” said Charles, who was close to tears, “how can you possibly justify cold-blooded murder?’ Henry lit a cigarette. “I prefer to think of it,” he had said, “as redistribution of matter.”

That night I wrote in my journal: “Trees are schizophrenic now and beginning to lose control, enraged with the shock of their fiery new colors. Someone – was it van Gogh? – said that orange is the color of insanity. Beauty is terror. We want to be devoured by it, to hide ourselves in that fire which refines us.

Before, I was paralyzed, though I didn’t really know it. It was because I thought too much, lived too much in the mind…

Месяцы спустя после знакомства с неразлучной пятёркой я с удивлением выяснил, что поначалу был для них не меньшей загадкой, чем они для меня.

- Нет, не обиделся, - отрезал я. Эти панические попытки примирения раздражали меня куда больше оскорблений.

...в подпитии им овладевал дух противоречия и, как капризный ребенок, он начинал делать все наперекор

Я увидел, как с его губ вместе с облачком дыма слетело беззвучное "бля".

There ARE such things as ghosts. People everywhere have always known that. And we believe in them every bit as much as Homer did. Only now, we call them by different name. Memory. The unconsious.

It is dangerous to ignore the existence of the irrational. The more cultivated a person is, the more intelligent, the more repressed, then the more he needs some method of channeling the primitive impulses he's worked so hard to subdue. Otherwise those powerful old forces will mass and strengthen until they are violent enough to break free, more violent for the delay, often strong enough to sweep the will away entirely.

'Death is the mother of beauty,' said Henry. 'And what is beauty?' 'Terror'

Помню, как-то я проснулся в шесть утра, спустился на кухню и обнаружил, что кто-то недавно вымыл пол, он еще был влажным и блестел — безупречная работа, если бы не таинственный отпечаток босой ноги Пятницы на песчаной отмели между нагревателем и верандой.