Bibliothèque is life

Here's my character and theme analysis of Pearl:

Vicious Delicious: Luvcat’s Noir Purrs

"But what was guilt these days? It was cheap. Everyone was guilty, and no one was. No one would be redeemed by a change of evidence, for there weren't enough people, enough paper and pens, enough patience and peace, to take down the statements of all the witnesses and gather in the facts. The witnesses were guilty too. All day we've witnessed each other's crimes. You killed no one today? But how many did you leave to die?"

"Those of us who cannot imitate, lack imagination. We cannot see outside our own manner - we are nasty little nationalists."

"One person waiting for another was like an arithmetical sum, and just as empty of emotion. Waiting. Simply one person doing nothing, over time, while another approached."

"She was weary of being outdoors, but she was not ready to go in. Was that really all there is to life, indoors or out? Wasn't there somewhere else for people to go?"

"Beauty, she had discovered, occupied a narrow band. Ugliness, on the other hand, had infinite variation."

The last time I came back to life was in the middle of an ordinary day, while at the grocery store, when I caught my reflection in the butcher's glass & did not flinch.

Word Problem

To my daughters I need to say: Go with the ones who love you biblically. The one whose love lifts its head to you despite its broken neck.

my closed mouth, a thorn shoved hard into her lip

"It's ok to write, *I deserve everything!* To bow down to this rotten thing that understands you, to adore the red & ugly queen of it, admire her calm & steady rowing."

"It's ok to be the whale that never comes up for air, to love best the taste of your own blood."

"She knew very well where the sun shone, and yet was bound by impulse to bury herself in the dark. Perhaps the gift of rationality did not outweigh the debilitating agony that came with it."

"And if falling in love was discovery, was letting yourself be discovered the equivalent to being loved?"

"I want you to imagine media as a pipeline to a city in the desert. Our metaphorical desert. I can provide only 30% what comes through that pipeline, but I can affect 100% of it. My water contaminates the rest. Do I want this city in the desert to hallucinate? Do I want its inhabitants to write in pain? Do I want them to rise up? It all starts with what I want."