Mason Dixon Pynchon Quotes & Sayings

And why, oh why, I wondered, had he named me after himself? What kind of a father would do that to his son? What could he have been thinking? Was it an excess of pride? Or was it, as my sister had once theorized, just the opposite, a deep-seated sense of inferiority that made our father want to double himself? — George Bishop

I used to write at home, but it didn't ever occur to me to be a writer. — Sarah Waters

..because never in my life have I ever been picked when there was another alternative. — Jasmine Warga

Human nature, essentially changeable, unstable as the dust, can endure no restraint; if it binds itself it soon begins to tear madly at its bonds, until it renders everything asunder, the wall, and the bonds and its very self. — Kafka, Franz

It occurs to me that my thinking has been faulty: we do not feel God's absence. We feel the absence of all that is lost to God, that which has set itself apart and refuses to return, believing itself to be in exile. — K.J. Bishop

Stop!" I sent my open hand sailing and slapped Talbot across his face.
He let go of the spear and stared down at me-that rage burning in his eyes. Then he blinked and clutched his palm over the red hand-shaped mark I'd left on his face. "What was that for!"
"He submitted.Let.Him.Go. — Bree Despain

Only as you do know yourself can your brain serve you as a sharp and efficient tool. Know your own failings, passions, and prejudices so you can separate them from what you see. — Bernard Baruch

They are examin'd skeptickally. "Not from the Press, are you?" " 'Pon my Word," cry both Surveyors at once. "Drummers of some kind's my guess," puts in a Countryman, his Rifle at his Side, "am I right, Gents?" "What'll we say?" mutters Mason urgently to Dixon. "Oh, do allow me," says Dixon to Mason. Adverting to the Room, "Why aye, Right as a Right Angle, we're out here to ruffle up some business with any who may be in need of Surveying, London-Style, - Astronomickally precise, optickally up-to-the-Minute, surprisingly cheap. The Behavior of the Stars is the most perfect Motion there is, and we know how to read it all, just as you'd read a Clock-Face. We have Lenses that never lie, and Micrometers fine enough to subtend the Width of a Hair upon a Martian's Eye-ball. This looks like a bustling Town, plenty of activity in the Land-Trades, where think yese'd be a good place to start?" with an amiability that Mason recognizes as peculiarly Quaker, - Friendly Business. — Thomas Pynchon

Dixon, our, um, Lives? are in Danger?" "Hardly enough to interrupt a perfectly good - " Here he is silenc'd by an immense Thunder-Bolt from directly overhead, as their frail Prism is bleach'd in unholy Light. " - Saturday Night for, is it I ask you . . . ?" his Head emerging at last from beneath a Blanket, "Mason? Say, Mason, - are thee . . . ?" Mason, now outside, pushes aside the Tent-flap with his head, but does not enter. "Dixon. I will now seek Shelter beneath that Waggon out there, d'ye see it? If you wish to join me, there's room." "Bit too much Iron there for me, thanks all the same. — Thomas Pynchon

Tessa reached for the words ... You know, in that essay of Donne's, what he says ... about how no man is an island. Everything you do touches others. — Cassandra Clare

Mason is able to inspect the long Map, fragrant, elegantly cartouch'd with Indians and Instruments, at last. Ev'ry place they ran it, ev'ry House pass'd by, Road cross'd, the Ridge-lines and Creeks, Forests and Glades, Water ev'ry-where, and the Dragon nearly visible. "So, - so. This is the Line as all shall see it after its Copper-Plate 'Morphosis, - and all History remember? This is what ye expect me to sign off on?" "Not the worst I've handed in. And had they wish'd to pay for Coloring? Why, tha'd scarcely knaah the Place . . . ?" "This is beauteous Work. Emerson was right, Jeremiah. You were flying, all the time." Dixon, his face darken'd by the Years of Weather, may be allowing himself to blush in safety. "Could have us'd a spot of Orpiment, all the same. Some Lapis . . . ? — Thomas Pynchon

I had my Boswell, once," Mason tells Boswell, "Dixon and I. We had a joint Boswell. Preacher nam'd Cherrycoke. Scribbling ev'rything down, just like you, Sir. Have you," twirling his Hand in Ellipses, - "you know, ever . . . had one yourself? If I'm not prying." "Had one what?" "Hum . . . a Boswell, Sir, - I mean, of your own. Well you couldn't very well call him that, being one yourself, - say, a sort of Shadow ever in the Room who has haunted you, preserving your ev'ry spoken remark, - " "Which else would have been lost forever to the great Wind of Oblivion, - think," armsweep south, "as all civiliz'd Britain gathers at this hour, how much shapely Expression, from the titl'd Gambler, the Barmaid's Suitor, the offended Fopling, the gratified Toss-Pot, is simply fading away upon the Air, out under the Door, into the Evening and the Silence beyond. All those voices. Why not pluck a few words from the multitudes rushing toward the Void of forgetfulness? — Thomas Pynchon

Mason prefers to switch over to Tea, when it is Dixon's turn to begin shaking his head. "Can't understand how anyone abides that stuff." "How so?" Mason unable not to react. "Well, it's disgusting, isn't it? Half-rotted Leaves, scalded with boiling Water and then left to lie, and soak, and bloat?" "Disgusting? this is Tea, Friend, Cha, - what all tasteful London drinks, - that," pollicating the Coffee-Pot, "is what's disgusting." "Au contraire," Dixon replies, "Coffee is an art, where precision is all, - Water-Temperature, mean particle diameter, ratio of Coffee to Water or as we say, CTW, and dozens more Variables I'd mention, were they not so clearly out of thy technical Grasp, - — Thomas Pynchon

State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then dies out of itself; the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production.
Quoted in The Situationists and the City, pg. 194 — Friedrich Engels

The investigation of the rights of the slave has led me to a better understanding of my own. I have found the anti-slavery cause to be ... the school in which human rights are more fully investigated and better understood and taught than in any other. — Angelina Grimke