Quotes From "Vertigo" By W.G. Sebald

Tudo parecia organizado da melhor forma possível, como se de fato o mundo constasse somente de palavras, como se assim o próprio horror fosse trazido para dimensões seguras, como se para cada aspecto de uma coisa houvesse um reverso, para cada mal um bem, para cada dissabor um prazer, para cada infelicidade uma felicidade e para cada mentira um quinhão de verdade. W.G. Sebald

Once I am at leisure, said Salvatore, I take refuge in prose as one might in a boat. All day long I am surrounded by the clamour on the editorial floor, but in the evening I cross over to an island, and every time, the moment I read the first sentences, it is as if I were rowing far out on the water. It is thanks to my evening reading alone that I am still more or less sane. W.G. Sebald

There is something about my face in the mirrors that catch it. Even at a distance it will never be right again, not even to a casual glance. Beauty: it's the upkeep that costs, that's what Balzac said, not the initial investment. Joanna Walsh

There are so many of you, and you are still just the way I thought I'd grow up, with all that was enviably grown-up about you: the lace tops with modesty inserts, and the spangles as if for nights out, the stiff hair, the cardigans grown over with a fungus of secondary sexual characteristics--bristling with embroidery and drooping with labial frills. Joanna Walsh

We sit in the ruin, each reading a book, or three of us read out of four. Three different voices speak to us. We have taught the children to read again this week. Here, where there is no voice, apart from ours, they are desperate for any other. They will even sing to themselves, sometimes. The boy whistles. He makes his voice croak. He sings the same thing again, but breathing in. A bird echoes the first notes of Vivaldi. Joanna Walsh

Time slowed as metal shards enveloped her like shattered glass. None pierced her of course, but it seemed as though she might be able to reach out and pluck one from the sky. She settled for stretching out an imagined hand, palm upturned, and letting a shard fall through it untouched like the ghost she had become. G.S. Jennsen

God, she was beautiful. Hair a tangled mess, clothes torn, lips pale and swollen, skin streaked in dirt. And she was so damn beautiful and flawed and perfect. G.S. Jennsen

She didn’t want to be the savior of humanity. She never had. She didn’t want to be the vanguard–of destruction or salvation. What she had really wanted was to be a girl whose father lived to show her the stars. Instead she had been left to wander them alone. Until she discovered someone who saw the stars as she did. G.S. Jennsen

We–humanity–didn’t come this far by being afraid. Explorers and visionaries have willingly headed off to certain death for thousands of years and by doing so brought us to where we are today. No one has ever told us ‘no’ and succeeded in making it stick for long. We accede to these aliens’ demands and we’ll wither away. It may take centuries or even millennia, but we’ll be so busy cowering in fear we’ll forget to move forward. I say we fight. G.S. Jennsen

He steadied himself by resting one palm on her thigh and the other on the armrest, and rose to his knees. “I’ll be damned.”“ Possibly. But not today, I think. G.S. Jennsen

If humanity is annihilated because we were too busy squabbling with one another to manage a proper stand, we probably deserve the annihilation. G.S. Jennsen

His whisper continued to stream a silent cacophony of warnings, kill and damage reports and pleas for assistance. He allowed himself two seconds to watch it and came away with the sense they were losing. Not lost and not soon, but losing. G.S. Jennsen

He was terrified he was making the wrong choice. He relied on his instincts in his work but now he didn’t dare trust them. The wound of betrayal still burned raw in his chest and another cut might be the killing blow. But it was the end of the world and there may be no more second chances. G.S. Jennsen

You’re covered in blood again.”“ I really am.” “Why are you always covered in blood when I wake up after being unconscious?” “Usually for the same reason you were unconscious, I think. G.S. Jennsen

She burst into her hotel room pulling her blouse over her head with one hand while she yanked her shoes off with the other. No way was she going to face an alien invasion in heels and silk. G.S. Jennsen

You’re insane.”“ It’ll work.”“ Which does not alter the fact that you are insane. G.S. Jennsen

His punch knocked her back a meter into the wall. His fist had moved of his own volition, carrying a rage and frustration all its own. To his dismay, she didn’t fall. People so small as her always fell. No tears pooled in her eyes; instead they flared golden amber as she rubbed her jaw and pushed off the wall to stand rigid straight. A peculiar smile danced across her lips as blood trickled from the corner of her mouth and down her chin. G.S. Jennsen

The Artificial’s speech pattern was an idiosyncratic mix of awkward and colloquial. It was unexpectedly endearing. “I just have good instincts. Mostly I love being in space.” But you are not ‘in’ space. You are in your starship and your starship is in space. It is not so different than being on a planet. “Oh, Valkyrie, you have no idea.” Tell me then. G.S. Jennsen

So that’s why I say ‘never have anything you can’t walk away from.’ Especially a woman. For them, because this is a dangerous life we lead and you never know if or when it will blow back on those close to you."" And for you, because trust me when I tell you there exists no greater perdition than the guilt of causing the death of someone you love. G.S. Jennsen

She thought he might have said her name, but it was background radiation accompanying the hum in her ears and the symphony in her head––a song of quantum mechanics and trajectory calculations and astroscience physics and where to go, where to go, where to… G.S. Jennsen

As soon as he had departed she directed her attention to the others.“ I need a shielded containment box, radiation gloves and a micro welding torch. And a crescent wrench. G.S. Jennsen

If her daughter’s ship had been disintegrated in space there would never be evidence of it, never an answer to what had happened to her. If she stopped to ponder the implications she might break. And Admiral Miriam Solovy did not break. G.S. Jennsen

Blood drummed in her ears and adrenaline coursed through her veins, driving her to move. To act. Her hands trembled against his chest. Time vanished out from beneath her feet, one accelerating second at a time. G.S. Jennsen

They flew high above savanna grassland. The sky was the deep cornflower blue of a sunny late afternoon on Earth…exactly the color of a sunny late afternoon on Earth.Only there was no sun. Whatever was lighting this planet, it wasn’t a star. G.S. Jennsen

Above the curving arc of the planet, a mammoth explosion plumed crimson and charcoal then erupted in a starburst of crystaline white which for a microsecond shone brighter than a sun. For the briefest moment he allowed himself to entertain the notion that they might win this battle. Then the real battle began. G.S. Jennsen

Her weight settled on her back foot as she crossed her arms over her chest and stared at him, now legitimately baffled.“ How delusional are you, aliens in your head notwithstanding? G.S. Jennsen

Do you love me?” His voice rang flat in his own ears, deadened and weighted with the recognition there was only one chance, and a fool’s chance at that G.S. Jennsen

Individuals reacted in any number of ways to extreme stress and, relatedly, to impending death. A non-negligible percentage of people reacted in a manner which could be summed up by, ‘Screw it, I’m going out in style! G.S. Jennsen

He wanted to grind every Federation world into dust beneath his boot as his army blazed a trail of blood and corpses all the way to Seneca.He wanted to storm their inner sanctum and fire a laser into the skull of their Field Marshal while their Chairman watched, then fire a laser into the skull of their Chairman.He wanted to burn their bodies on a pyre and carry the ashes back to Deucali and spread them on his mother’s consecrated grave. G.S. Jennsen

She gazed at the bay of wrecked shuttles in dismay. The last of her adrenaline seeped away at the sight of the widespread destruction. It occurred to her then, for perhaps the first time in this long nightmare, that she was going to die. G.S. Jennsen

Guilt ripped into her like a rusty, serrated knife. It took up residence in her soul, settling in and getting comfortable so it could saw away ragged pieces of flesh and leave her to bleed. G.S. Jennsen

She settled back in the chair and draped one leg casually over the other, her hands coming to rest together on her knee.“ Arrest me. Torture me. Parade me about in the public square. You will have your prize catch. And you will lose everything. G.S. Jennsen

Deep in the recesses of her mind, she knew they were probably watching. They watched everything, after all. Let them watch. Let them see what it meant to be human. To live. Let them see what it meant to love, and be loved in return. G.S. Jennsen

How I wished during those sleepless hours that I belonged to a different nation, or better still, to none at all. W.G. Sebald

He did not have time to wallow, to give a moment’s thought to what may have happened to her or whether she was alive. Turn into the punch, grab hold of the gun, leap into the arena. Attack.He had to move. Now. G.S. Jennsen

It was real sweet, except that he'd drugged me and ridden me to within an inch of my life, and I was still so high I was paralyzed and mute. But other than that, I guess it was pretty romantic. Jordan Castillo Price

Tiny details imperceptible to us decide everything! W.G. Sebald

I am tired and drunk and still hungry. He is full of steak and Coca-Cola and, presumably, energy: enough energy to cross the road and walk up the steps inside the tower of the cathedral, which I have never entered. Joanna Walsh