"They put us in this box, and we'll race like this until we kill somebody, and then they'll change it."

"We do not content ourselves with the life we have in ourselves and in our own being; we desire to live an imaginary life in the mind of others, and for this purpose we endeavor to shine. We labor unceasingly to adorn and preserve this imaginary existence, and neglect the real. And if we possess calmness, or generosity, or truthfulness, we are ( Read more... )

"My whole life has been a waste - I've been a failure. I just want to escape. I'm really embarrassed with myself and my life. I want to be a missionary. I think I could do that while keeping my dignity without letting people know they chased me out of the country. I want to get this part of my life over as soon as possible. In this country nothing ( Read more... )

Between 1790 and 1840, millions of middle-class Americans throughout the nation encountered "Fancy": they rode in a Fancy sleigh, dressed up in Fancy clothes, blew their noses in Fancy handkerchiefs, bought goods at Fancy shops, ate at Fancy tables on Fancy dishes, and slept under Fancy coverlets. Not just fancy but Fancy: an early 19th-century ( Read more... )

"I am more interested in the subtle, the oblique, the allusive."

"I go through life feeling sorry for pretty much everybody. I'll pass a toll, and I'll think about the toll collector standing in there for eight or ten hours a day -- how do they do it? How do they get up in the morning and go back? I feel sorry for everyone."

"The criticism comes from the kind of quarters where 'political correctness' in its worst manifestation is rife. It's this kind of naive notion of how we should be in an unrealistic and altogether unhealthily over-wholesome way."

The issue of class also plays an important role, albeit largely subliminated, with Tommo (as the natives call the narrator) struggling to assert his identity as a member of the working class in a society where work, in the modern capitalist sense, is unknown.

"You're punishing yourself more than anybody else is going to punish you."

“I aim at the back of my opponent’s head … fantasize going through the head … Every punch is thrown with bad intention.”

“I don’t have that ferocity. I’m not an animal anymore.”

At the heart of Tyson is a contradiction: Its subject, who grew up in a fractured home in a violent neighborhood, trusted no one, confided nothing, and learned to channel ( Read more... )