WORM'S COMMENT: Here are some quotes I liked from recently-read books.
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Ken Bruen, a life-long resident of Galway, writes very dark crime stories featuring ex-Garda Jack Taylor, who often talks about the Irish people he loves:
There are many crimes in the Irish lexicon, odd actions that in the UK wouldn't even rate a mention, but here are nigh on unforgivable.
Topping the list are:
Silence or reticence. You've got to be able to chat, preferably incessantly. Making sense isn't even part of the equation.
Not buying a round. You might think no one notices, but they do.
Having notions, ideas above your imagined station.
Neglecting the grave of your family.
There are others, such as having a posh accent, disliking hurling, watching BBC, but they are the second division. There's a way back from them, but the first division, you are fucked.
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Tropper is the opposite of Bruen; he writes very good and very funny novels about dis-functional people and families, but he throws in zingers like this one from his protagonist, Joe Goffman:
To err, as they say, is human. To forgive is divine. To err by withholding your forgiveness until it’s too late is to become divinely fucked up. Only after burying my father do I realize that I always intended to forgive him. But somewhere I blinked, and seventeen years flew by, and now my forgiveness, ungiven, has become septic, an infection festering inside me.
CHARLIE"S COMMENT: I "intended to forgive" my father for the shit life he gave our family, especially when I saw him sitting so alone in a warehouse for unwanted old people. But I never said a word and, when he died, he died alone, unforgiven, and very sad. And when I think of him like that, it saddens me too.
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Conroy is the author of the novels The Great Santini, The Lords of Discipline, and The Prince of Tides, among others. My Reading Life, however, is a non-fiction book about books—those that influenced Conroy's reading life, writing life, and life in general. I could say that the book is more about Conroy and his own books, but I won't because that would make this a book review. Rather, I'll leave you with a quip he made while living in Paris:
France is the only country in the world where friendliness is one of the seven deadly sins.