All their lives they had slaved at some kind of dull, heavy labor, behind desks and counters, in the fields and at tedious machines of all sorts, saving their pennies and dreaming of the leisure that would be theirs when they had enough. Finally that day came. They could draw a weekly income of ten or fifteen dollars. Where else should they go but California, the land of sunshine and oranges? Once there, they discover that sunshine isn’t enough. They get tired of oranges, even of avocado pears and passion fruit. Nothing happens. They don’t know what to do with their time. They haven’t the mental equipment for leisure, the money nor the physical equipment for pleasure. Did they slave so long just to go to an occasional Iowa picnic? What else is there? They watch the waves come in at Venice. There wasn’t any ocean where most of them came from, but after you’ve seen one wave, you’ve seen them all. The same is true of the airplanes at Glendale. If only a plane would crash once in a while so that they could watch the passengers being consumed in a “holocaust of flame,” as the newspapers put it. But the planes never crash. Their boredom becomes more and more terrible. They realize that they’ve been tricked and burn with resentment. Every day of their lives they read the newspapers and went to the movies. Both fed them on lynchings, murder, sex crimes, explosions, wrecks, love nests, fires, miracles, revolutions, wars. Their daily diet made sophisticates of them. The sun is a joke. Oranges can’t titillate their jaded palates. Nothing can ever be violent enough to make taut their slack minds and bodies. They have been cheated and betrayed. They have slaved and saved for nothing.
Nathanael West
Related I like to open for a band as it brings on sort of a challenge and it makes things more interesting. ... KELLY JONES Millions of people acknowledge today that they do not know the meaning of life. JAMES C. DOBSON Or maybe they just accept that it's wrong in God's eyes, although not in their own, and they'll worr... CRAIG GROESCHEL And modern houses don't have passages, either, for children to play and run about in, and for dogs, ... MARGUERITE DURAS Empathy is the new measurement of everything. It doesn't matter what religion you have, what God you... C. JOYBELL C. War seems like a fine adventure, the greatest most of them will ever know. Then they get a taste of ... GEORGE R.R. MARTIN But this is what ... people are so often and disastrously wrong in doing: they (who by their very na... RAINER MARIA RILKE is a broken man an outlaw?" "More or less." Brienne answered. Septon Meribald ... GEORGE R.R. MARTIN I thank God for schools that are serious about the gospel of Jesus Christ. They are vital to perpetu... JAMES C. DOBSON When ladies are between the ages of 19 and 24 years, lot of right men would come their way but just ... ALALE ANTHONY They were living to themselves: self, with its hopes, and promises, and dreams, still had hold of th... ELIZABETH PAYSON PRENTISS They won't live their lives... They see things they don't wanna see Yet they won't shut t... FLONJA AKSHIJA I'm convinced normal people miss the majority of God's blessings because they're too busy to notice ... CRAIG GROESCHEL There is a folk-tale about a shoemaker and his wife who were so poor that they had to send their man... GYULA ILLYéS Wherever they went the Irish brought with them their books, many unseen in Europe for centuries and ... THOMAS CAHILL (All the grief she had suffered over her lifetime had moulded her face into a mask of eternal sadnes... JEAN SASSON That, they never could lay their heads upon their pillows; that, they could never tolerate the idea ... CHARLES DICKENS Nothing can escape death. Not even the Sun. Not even the Earth. Not even the unive... HINA YU He it is Who caused those who disbelieved of the followers of the Book to go forth from their homes ... QURAN You are not wrong," Laurence said. He had assumed as much himself, after all, in his Navy days: had ... NAOMI NOVIK Why do farmers farm, given their economic adversities on top of the many frustrations and difficulti... WENDELL BERRY Sometimes, a person isn’t looking to increase their lifestyle, status or ego when they fall in lov... SHANNON L. ALDER The words I'm singing now
Mean nothing more than meow to an animal THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS Certain it is that work, worry, labor and trouble, form the lot of almost all men their whole life l... ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER Most German perpetrators were never punished or rewarded for their behavior, but they had learned so... FERN SCHUMER CHAPMAN Let me implore the reader to try to believe, if only for a moment, that God, who made these deservin... C.S. LEWIS Yes, yes, it ended in my corrupting them all! How it could come to pass I do not know, but I re... FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY But this too is true: stories can save us. TIM O'BRIEN They have not forgotten the Mysteries,' she said, ‘they have found them too difficult. They want a... MARION ZIMMER BRADLEY For thousands of years, violent men have been able to tell their victims that those victims owe them... DAVID GRAEBER He fell to the seat, she by his side. There were no more words. The stars were beginning to shine. H... VICTOR HUGO ... bright young men of disheveled appearance, often with sunken glowing eyes, can be seen sitt... JOSEPH WEIZENBAUM If the thing they were fighting for was important enough to die for then it was also important enoug... DALTON TRUMBO Though all the daughters eventually succeeded in escaping from their families, they felt, even at th... JUDITH LEWIS HERMAN Everyone, at some point in their lives, wakes up in the middle of the night with the feeling that th... LEMONY SNICKET Now they have a riddle. - Criminal Minds DEYTH BANGER I liked myths. They weren't adult stories and they weren't children's stories. They were better than... NEIL GAIMAN He wondered about the people in houses like those. They would be, for example, small clerks, shop-as... GEORGE ORWELL With a hologram, like when your teacher is one of them, if you aren’t looking right at them, they ... M.T. ANDERSON For all these stars, nothing is new. They’ve seen all kinds of wars and miracles, t... KAMAND KOJOURI There's nothing to mourn about death any more than there is to mourn about the growing of a flower. ... CHARLES BUKOWSKI See, I know how they do. White folks like to stay in those books. They carry and they keep and they ... MARGARET WRINKLE In the third watch, both hunger and thirst bark for attention, and food is put into the mouth. That ... SRI GURU GRANTH SAHIB I used to be in control of a yard on Milton Street, where fellas could come there and sleep. If they... DREXEL DEAL What if you had once seen hell open, and all the damned there in their easeless torments, and had he... RICHARD BAXTER I don't know if I have a favorite color. KATE MIDDLETON It's very special having a new little girl. KATE MIDDLETON Still, being fragile creatures, humans always try to hide from themselves the certainty that they wi... PAULO COELHO What's so great about sports is we can teach them the basics of any sport in one day. And in one day... KIRK BAUER ...he was one of the great intellectuals of the 1940s who completed their higher studies in the... ALAA AL ASWANY The gangs filled a void in society, and the void was the absence of family life. The gang became a f... DREXEL DEAL Newspapers are the Bibles of worldlings. How diligently they read them! Here they find the... CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON Hive Queen: They never know anything. They don't have enough years in their little lives to come to ... ORSON SCOTT CARD She would be one of those who kneel to their own shadows till feet grow on their knees; then go down... GEORGE MACDONALD People say, 'I'm going to sleep now,' as if it were nothing. But it's really a bizarre activity. 'Fo... GEORGE CARLIN And they swore by Allah with the strongest of their oaths that if there came to them a warner they w... QURAN Commemoration of Gilbert of Sempringham, Founder of the Gilbertine Order, 1189 Christ became ever ... A. J. GOSSIP I think the most important thing that happened to us the whole time we were here was more recent ... JANETTE LOW i will tell you about selfish people. even when they know they will hurt you they walk into your lif... RUPI KAUR What makes people good communicators is, in essence, an ability not to be fazed by the more problema... ALAIN DE BOTTON If I had spoken to him out loud, he would have understood the tragic fate of those who came back, le... ELIE WIESEL If anyone says that sex, in itself, is bad, Christianity contradicts him at once. But, of course, wh... C.S. LEWIS I was on 'Melrose' at a time where we had to all go home and be there at the same time when ... LAURA LEIGHTON Too often the people complain that they have done nothing with their lives and then they wait f... CHARLES BUKOWSKI Clay in the hands of a good potter suffers so many good turns, but in the end, we see its real and t... ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH But Viv, if I've learned anything at all in the last eight years of my life? It's that people just l... KATIE COYLE The Jedi is a practitioner of mind mastery. He realizes that whatever they are experiencing, they ar... STEPHEN RICHARDS Reasons... questions... what they have in common? - All get finded in the hard way. DEYTH BANGER HELPED are those who are content to be themselves; they will never lack mystery in their lives and t... ALICE WALKER Parents rarely let go of their children, so children let go of them. They move on. They move a... PAULO COELHO There is nothing to opinions, they may be beautiful or ugly, smart or foolish, everyone can sup... HERMANN HESSE I'm always highly irritated by people who imply that writing fiction is an escape from reality. It i... FLANNERY O'CONNOR Hard to restrain, unstable is this mind; it flits wherever it lists. Good it is to control the mind.... GAUTAMA BUDDHA The doors of the darkest room one had ever seen were opened and everyone was asked to collect t... AKSHAY VASU I have friends like that—very straightforward and responsible, good at what they do, good home lif... MIYUKI MIYABE Anger - a beast within us that needs taming. SARU SINGHAL The majority of persons choose their wives with as little prudence as they eat. They see a troll wit... EDWARD DAHLBERG There was something distinctly American about it all, a fundamental difference in perspective and pl... SUNIL YAPA They, looking back, all the eastern side beheld Of Paradise, so late their happy seat, Wav... JOHN MILTON You must save what you can of your life; you musn't lose it all simply because you've lost a part. HENRY JAMES There is a vast world of work out there in this country, where at least 111 million people are emplo... RICHARD NELSON BOLLES The only person that should wear your ring is the one person that would never… 1... SHANNON L. ALDER Youth was the time for happiness, its only season; young people, leading a lazy, carefree life, part... MICHEL HOUELLEBECQ Dear Child, Sometimes on your travel through hell, you meet people that think they are i... SHANNON L. ALDER Why kid ourselves, people have nothing to say to one another, they all talk about their own troubles... LOUIS-FERDINAND CéLINE Shall I tell you a story? A new and terrible one? A ghost story? Are you ready? Shall I begin? Once ... LIBBA BRAY The reason that most British actors are better than most American actors in the end is that they don... MIKE NICHOLS On Monday they went out for a private picnic. On Tuesday they went for a carriage drive. O... LISA KLEYPAS I have friends like that—very straightforward and responsible, good at what they do, good home lif... MIYUKI MIYABE They would have been pretty well insulated, but they were doing what we should complement them for d... CRAIG CLAUSEN Were these boys in their right minds? Here were two boys with good intellect, one eighteen and one n... CLARENCE DARROW Whereas during those months of separation time had never gone quickly enough for their liking and th... ALBERT CAMUS People don't want to think. And the deeper they get into trouble, the less they want to think. But b... AYN RAND The unfortunate thing is that, sometimes, we slip, but, fortunately, consciously or unconsciously, w... ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH They can award me with the greatest accolades and reward me with the finest diamonds. Th... KAMAND KOJOURI In the journey of life, certain paths may seem to be leading nowhere because of a mountain or hill o... ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH Everyone has a dream deep in their heart, which is a center of what they want to do. If they had all... BRUCE WILKINSON Then there are those who think their bodies don't exist. They live by mechanical time. They rise at ... ALAN LIGHTMAN It was pitiful for a person born in a wholesome free atmosphere to listen to their humble and hearty... MARK TWAIN They were not serving the public interest, but their immediate personal interest, and it was nothing... EDWARD BELLAMY
More Nathanael West
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