Please bear with me as there may be among these bits some good old oldies; but I am certain there are a few new ones as well.
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The first is in fact from a previous Choice Bits, September 2021. The writer is
Ada Limón, who just last month was appointed to the position of Poet Laureate of the USA.
“Whatever state you are, I’ll be that state’s bird.”
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Now, a few bits from
The Trial, by
Franz Kafka. The bits in quotation marks are from the novel.
The protagonist, known only as K. has some disturbing encounters with government authorities, agents of a department that “doesn’t seek out guilt among the general population, but, as the Law states, is attracted by guilt.”
“I don’t know that law,” says K.
“All the worse for you,” says one agent. “You’ll feel it eventually.”
Later on, a different agent from the department arrives at K’s house. “You’re under arrest,” the agent says to K., “but that’s not meant to keep you from carrying on your profession. Nor are you to be hindered in the course of your ordinary life.”
“Then being under arrest isn’t so bad,” says K.
“I never said it was”.
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Next is
Gertrude Stein. These lines are from short pieces in a collection titled
Geography and Plays.
“By the time artificial flowers were made out of feathers no pride was left.”
“Public speaking is sinister if cousins are brothers.”
“There is no end of likelihood.”
“In believing a shoemaker you believe his father.”
“The waves are never higher than the water.”
“The single attention was such that any candy was the same as eaten.”
“They have a way of doing what they are doing, they have a way of not doing what they are not doing.”
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© 2022 Randy Stark
My books are available on
Amazon.
