Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β * . β§ THE SECRET HISTORYβ§ . *
Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β - STARTERS -
β Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it. β β Beauty is rarely soft or consolatory. Quite the contrary. Genuine beauty is always quite alarming. β β This is the only story I will ever be able to tell. β β But how, how can you possibly justify cold-blooded murder? β β Are you happy here? β β But isn't it also pain that often makes us most aware of self? β β Our own selves make us most unhappy, and that's why we're so anxious to lose them, don't you think? β β Some things are too terrible to grasp at once.Β β β It is is better to know one book intimately than a hundred superficially. β β Forgive me, for all the things I did but mostly for the ones that I did not. β β Love doesn't conquer everything. And whoever thinks it does is a fool. β β There are such things as ghosts. People everywhere have always known that. β β I am nothing in my soul if not obsessive. β β I felt my existence was tainted, in some subtle but essential way. β β How did they get there? When did this happen? β β Anything is grand if it's done on a large enough scale. β β Any action, in the fullness of time, sinks to nothingness. β β I suppose the shock of recognition is one of the nastiest shocks of all. β β Not quite what one expected, but once it happened one realized it couldn't be any other way. β β It is easy to see things in retrospect. β β What are the dead, anyway, but waves and energy? Light shining from a dead star? β β I no longer have the ability to travel as freely as I would like. β β After all, the appeal to stop being yourself, even for a little while, is very great. β β How quickly he fell; how soon it was over. β β They understand not only evil, it seemed, but the extravagance of tricks with which evil presents itself as good. β β Someone -- was it van Gogh? -- said that orange is the color of insanity. β β I suppose there is a certain crucial interval in everyoneβs life when character is fixed forever. β β It is dangerous to ignore the existence of the irrational. β β Who is in control here? β β I think it's good to change the place where one sleeps from time to time. I believe it gives one more interesting dreams. β β It's a terrible thing, what we did. β β I had never been warm in my life, ever. β β It is a terrible thing to learn as a child that one is a being separate from all the world. β β It does not do to be frightened of things about which you know nothing. β β You are like children. Afraid of the dark. β β It's beautiful here, but morning light can make the most vulgar things tolerable. β













