Sunday, July 23, 2006

Madding Quotes

The classic book for this month’s club was Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy.

Hardy is a word twirler that can keep up with the best linguist jugglers, and while entertaining make great insight into the workings of the sexes, as well as a stab or two at practical theology.

Some quotes from the book that caught my mind’s eye:

“That I can’t, indeed,” he said, moving past Oak as a Christian edges past an offertory-plate when he does not mean to contribute.

Silence has sometimes a remarkable power of showing itself as the disembodied soul of feeling wandering without its carcass, and it is then more impressive than speech.

‘Yes,’ said Joseph, ‘and I was sitting at home looking for Ephesians, and says to myself, “’Tis nothing but Corinthians and Thessalonians in this danged Testament…”

Her emblazoned fault was to be too pronounced in her objections, and not sufficiently overt in her likings. We learn that it is not the rays which bodies absorb, but those which they reject, that give them the colours they are known by; and in the same way people are specialized by thei dislikes and antagonisms, whilst their goodwill is looked upon as no attribute at all.

-Sean

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