Those first few months were definitely the hardest.
     Every night, Liesel would nightmare.
     Her brother's face.
     Staring at the floor.
     She would wake up swimming in her bed, screaming, and drowning in the flood of sheets. On the other side of the room, the bed that was meant for her brother floated boatlike in the darkness. Slowly, with the arrival of consciousness, it sank, seemingly into the floor. This vision didn't help matters, and it would usually be quite a while before the screaming stopped.
     Possibly the only good to come out of these nightmares was that it brought Hans Hubermann, her new papa, into the room, to soothe her, to love her.
     He came in every night and sat with her. The first couple of times, he simply stayed--a stranger to kill the aloneness. A few nights after that, he whispered, "Shhh, I'm here, it's all right." After three weeks, he held her. Trust was accumulated quickly, due primarily to the brute strength of the man's gentleness, his thereness. The girl knew from the outset that Hans Hubermann would always appear midscream, and he would not leave.


* * * A DEFINITION NOT FOUND * * *
IN THE DICTIONARY
Not leaving: an act of trust and love,
often deciphered by children


The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Weren't we all crazy in our sleep? What was sleep, after all, but the process by which we dumped our insanity into a dark subconscious pit and came out on the other side ready to eat cereal instead of the neighbor's children?

Darkly Dreaming Dexter, Jeff Lindsay

"Остальные места в первой десятке заняли блогер Даниил Шеповалов, журналист Леонид Парфенов, бывший глава "ЮКОСа" Михаил Ходорковский, публицист Константин Крылов, патриарх Кирилл, ученый Сергей Капица, телеведущий Александр Гордон, писатель Борис Стругацкий и политик и писатель Эдуард Лимонов."http://www.lenta.ru/news/2009/12/21/pelevin/
----------------

Здесь о Шеповалове, кто не в курсе:
http://lurkmore.ru/%D0%A8%D0%B5%D0%BF%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B2_%D0%94%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B8%D0%BB

С одной стороны, сами опросы уже формируют результаты, но отчасти это и срез авторитетов для публики. Именно - для публики, которая не может самостоятельно отличить полезную и умную информацию от раскрученных СМИ псевдо-интеллектуалов всех мастей.
Почему так в России и не только в России? Потому что:

"Многие вещи нам не понятны не потому, что наши понятия слабы, а просто сии вещи не входят в круг наших понятий" (Козьма Прутков).

"Толпа - есть собрание людей, живущих по преданию и рассуждающих по авторитету" (В.Г. Белинский).

Однако, надежда есть и не только для России в связи с выходом действительно полезных и умных работ:

- Достаточно общая теория управления
http://www.razumei.ru/lastlib/books/222

- Диалектика и атеизм: две сути несовместны
http://www.razumei.ru/lastlib/books/220

Извините, если задел кого кто не думает сам

Unrequited love, at that period of my life, the only kind I seemed capable of feeling. This caused me much pain, but in retrospect I had to see the advantages. It provided all the emotional jolts of the other kind without any of the risks, it did not interfere with my life, which, although meager, was mine and predictable, and it involved no decisions. In the world of stark physical reality it might call for the removal of my ill-fitting garments (in the dark or the bathroom, if possible: no woman wants a man to see her safety pins), but it left undisturbed metaphysical counterparts. My Plutonic vision of myself resembled an Egyptian mummy, a mysteriously wrapped object that might or might not fall into dust if uncovered. But unrequited love demanded no stripteases.

I loved you. I was a pentapod monster, but I loved you. I was despicable and brutal, and turpid, and everything, mais je t'aimais, je t'aimais.

Nobody ever complained? Girls were kind. No one ever told him, I could barely stay awake. If only you'd come faster, I could have ignored it altogether. Girls were born knowing how destructive the truth could be. They learned to hold it in, tamp it down, like gunpowder in an old fashioned gun. Then it exploded in your face, on a November day in the rain.

Beauty was deceptive. I would rather wear my pain, my ugliness. I was torn and stitched. I was a strip mine, and they would just have to look. I hoped I made them sick. I hoped they saw me in their dreams.

hi guys, it's my first time posting. 2 years ago i told my girlfriend about a quote on impossible love, i think the gist of it was (it might even have contained these exact words) "perfect in every other language"
now i need it again because we've both been wrecking our brains to remember it, any help will be appreciated. will definitely write it down this time

here are 2 quotes from chapter 9 of my favourite novel- wuthering heights

"...(H)e's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same; and Linton's is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire."

"If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem a part of it."


once again, thank you so much!

Here follows the substance of what I said, written out entirely for your benefit. Pay attention to it, or you will be all abroad, when we get deeper into the story. Clear your mind of the children, or the dinner, or the new bonnet, or what not. Try if you can't forget politics, horses, prices in the City, and grievances at the club. I hope you won't take this freedom on my part amiss; it's only a way I have of appealing to the gentle reader. Lord! haven't I seen you with the greatest authors in your hands, and don't I know how ready your attention is to wander when it's a book that asks for it, instead of a person?

**


Here was a golden opportunity! I seized it on the spot. In other words, I instantly opened my bag, and took out the top publication. It proved to be an early edition--only the twenty-fifth--of the famous anonymous work (believed to be by precious Miss Bellows), entitled The Serpent at Home. The design of the book--with which the worldly reader may not be acquainted--is to show how the Evil One lies in wait for us in all the most apparently innocent actions of our daily lives. The chapters best adapted to female perusal are "Satan in the Hair Brush;" "Satan behind the Looking Glass;" "Satan under the Tea Table;" "Satan out of the Window"--and many others.

"Give your attention, dear aunt, to this precious book--and you will give me all I ask." With those words, I handed it to her open, at a marked passage--one continuous burst of burning eloquence! Subject: Satan among the Sofa Cushions.

**


When the pursuit of our own interests causes us to become objects of inquiry to ourselves, we are naturally suspicious of what we don't know.