verbava все записи автора Kurt Vonnegut – While Mortals Sleep

The women were shaking their heads to let Jenny know they knew what a trial it was to get a man to take care of himself. And the men were giving George secret looks to let him know they knew what a good pain it was to have a woman always treating you like a baby.

***

“A man who hasn’t built up a certain immunity to love through constant exposure to it,” he said, “is in danger of being all but killed by love when the first exposure comes.” He shuddered. “Love scrambled poor George’s brains. Suddenly love was all that mattered."

***

Everybody pays attention to pictures of things. Nobody pays attention to things themselves.

***

Old Spitfire’s smashed up, but what do they care? Women are always talking about how men ought to try to understand their psychology more, but I don’t think they spend ten seconds a year trying to see things from a man’s point of view.

***

“Train number 427, the Seneca, arriving on track four,” said the voice in the loudspeaker. The voice seemed intent on shattering any illusions passengers might have of their destinations’ being better than what they were leaving. San Francisco was droned as cheerlessly as Troy; Miami sounded no more seductive than Knoxville.

***

One Saturday night, at the weekly dance of the Pisquontuit Yacht Club, young Robert Brewer, my student, who had never even seen the tango performed in his eighteen years of life, began to dip lowly and twist his toes. His movements were tentative at first, as involuntary as shudders. Robert’s mind and face were blank when it happened. The heady Latin music wandered in through his ears, found nobody at home under his crew cut, and took command of his long, thin body.

***

“It isn’t supposed to look good,” I said. “It’s supposed to feel good.”

***

She treated herself as worthless because no one had ever loved her enough to care if she was good or bad.
Since there was no one else to do it, she punished herself.

***

He was in a peculiar position, since he knew perfectly well that he was a humbug. He knew his paintings were awful, knew what a good picture was, knew what a good painter was. But he had somehow never passed the information on to his wife. Cornelia’s high opinion of his talent, while showing dreadful taste, was the most precious thing that Stedman had.

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