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106 Quotes

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The work of the philosophical policeman," replied the man in blue, "is at once bolder and more subtle than that of the ordinary detective. The ordinary detective goes to pot-houses to arrest thieves; we go to artistic tea-parties to detect pessimists. The ordinary detective discovers from a ledger or a diary that a crime has been committed. We discover from a book of sonnets that a crime will be committed. We have to trace the origin of those dreadful thoughts that drive men on at last to intellectual fanaticism and intellectual crime. We were only just in time to prevent the assassination at Hartlepool, and that was entirely due to the fact that our Mr. Wilks (a smart young fellow) thoroughly understood a triolet.

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Her gaze wavered towards one of the books on the sales counter beside the register, a hardcover copy of Shakespeare__ Hamlet with many of the pages dog-eared and stained with coffee and tea. The store owner caught her looking at it and slid it across the counter towards her. __ou ever read Hamlet?_ he questioned.__ tried to when I was in high school,_ said Mandy, picking up the book and flipping it over to read the back. __ mean, it__ expected that everyone should like Shakespeare__ books and plays, but I just_._ her words faltered when she noticed him laughing to himself. __hat__ so funny, Sir?_ she added, slightly offended.__Oh, I__ not laughing at you, just with you,_ said the store owner. __ost people who say they love Shakespeare only pretend to love his work. You__e honest Ma__m, that__ all. You see, the reason you and so many others are put-off by reading Shakespeare is because reading his words on paper, and seeing his words in action, in a play as they were meant to be seen, are two separate things_ and if you can find a way to relate his plays to yourself, you__l enjoy them so much more because you__l feel connected to them. Take Hamlet for example _ Hamlet himself is grieving over a loss in his life, and everyone is telling him to move on but no matter how hard he tries to, in the end all he can do is to get even with the ones who betrayed him.___Wow, when you put it that way_ sure, I think I__l buy a copy just to try reading, why not?_ Mandy replied with a smile.

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Rebecca McNutt

Shadowed Skies: The Third Smog City Novel

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Do you remember what we were speaking of earlier, of how bloody, terrible things are sometimes the most beautiful?_ he said. __t__ a very Greek idea, and a very profound one. Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it. And what could be more terrifying and beautiful, to souls like the Greeks or our own, than to lose control completely? To throw off the chains of being for an instant, to shatter the accident of our mortal selves? Euripides speaks of the Maenads: head thrown back, throat to the stars, __ore like deer than human being._ To be absolutely free! One is quite capable, of course, of working out these destructive passions in more vulgar and less efficient ways. But how glorious to release them in a single burst! To sing, to scream, to dance barefoot in the woods in the dead of night, with no more awareness of mortality than an animal! These are powerful mysteries. The bellowing of bulls. Springs of honey bubbling from the ground. If we are strong enough in our souls we can rip away the veil and look that naked, terrible beauty right in the face; let God consume us, devour us, unstring our bones. Then spit us out reborn.

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My dear fellow " Said Albert, turning to Franz " here is an admirable adventure; we will fill our carriage with pistols, blunderbusses, and double-barreled shotguns. Luigi Vampa comes to take us, and we take him - we bring him back to Rome , and present him to him holiness the Pope, who asks how he can repay so great a service; Then we merely ask for a cariage and a pair of horses, and we will see the Carnival in the carriage , and doubtless the Roman people will crown us at the capitol , and proclaim us, like Curtius and the veiled Horatius, the preservers of there country." Whilst Albert proposed this scheme, signor Pastrini's face assumed an expression impossible to describe.

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Alexandre Dumas

The Count of Monte Cristo