Dana Ramos

I had pictured, as a younger man, that the things I knew and would know were bricks in something that would, effortlessly, eventually, shape itself into something recognizable, meaningful. A massive and spiritual sort of geometry -- a ziggurat, a pyramid. But here I am now, so many years on, and if there is a shape to all this, it hasn't revealed itself. But no, thus far the things I know grow out, not up, and what might connect all these things, connective tissue or synapses, or just some sense of order, doesn't exist, or isn't functioning, and what I knew at twenty-seven can't be found now. Dave Eggers: You Shall Know Our Velocity

I was moving away from myself; silly ideas and images moved thier way across the desert of my mind. I no longer had control; all I could do was watch them and react; sometimes I'd laugh, sometimes I'd cry. The great caravans of thought passed more and more rarely until soon there was just the great desert: tabula rasa. Arther Nersesian: The Fuck-Up

Anyway, I kept walking and walking up Fifth Avenue, without any tie on or anything. Then all of the sudden, something very spooky started happening. Every time I came to the end of a goddam block and stepped off the curb, I had this feeling that I'd never get to the other side of the street. I thought I'd just go down, down, down and nobody'd ever see me again. J.D. Salinger: The Catcher In The Rye

I waited without hope of a ride. What was the point, even, of rolling up my sleeping bag when I was too wet to be let into anybody's car? I draped it around me like a cape. The downpour raked the asphalt and gurgled in the ruts. My thoughts zoomed fully. The traveling salesman had fed me pills that made the linings of my veins feel scraped out. My jaw ached. I knew every raindrop by its name. I sensed everything before it happened. I knew a certain Oldsmobile would stop for me even before it slowed, and by the sweet voices of the family inside it I knew we'd have an accident in the storm. I didn't care. They said they'd take me all the way. Denis Johnson: Jesus' Son

All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies. And whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first, they must catch you, digger, listener, runner. Prince with a swift warning. Be cunning, and full of tricks, and your people will never be destroyed. Richard Adams: Watership Down