昏暗之地

他们为何不能接受我们？我们原本可以喜欢他们：我们对他们的敌意仅仅出于破灭的希望，我们挣扎在灭亡的边缘，给他们带来那可怜的自我，仅仅想求得他们的认可。……我们的梦魇是，既然我们企盼的一切都似一缕轻烟从我们的指尖溜走了，那么我们没有存在过；既然我们拥有的都已凋落了，所存在的就只有我们了。

……这是一只真正意义上的芝诺生灵。“现在我只是一半死了。现在我只是四分之三四了。现在我只是八分之五死了。在你的手指拨弄下，我的生命正在无限地回归……现在，我只是十六分之十五死了。” …… 只有一个无限小的自我幸存下来，一个小小的“我”的回声轻轻回荡在空旷的永恒之中。

有一阵子，我们准备同情他们了，可是我们更同情自己想超凡入圣而导致的灾难性悲剧，我们的同情随之耗尽了。

枪代表了你自身以外借以生存的希冀，枪使此次征程中抵御孤立无援的终极防身之物，枪使我们与外界之间的调停人，因之是我们的救星。枪支所传递的信息是，外面的世界不过如此，没什么可惧怕的。枪支使我们不在忧虑我们身躯内中的生命，它把我们需要的证据献于我们脚下让我们明白：这是一个有死亡因而才是一个生机盎然的世界。

曲学阿世：歪曲自己的学术，以投世俗之好。

牧人从宿酲（cheng2，意为宿醉）中醒来，饥饿的孩子们在哭喊，他眼睁睁地看着空荡荡的牧场，尝到了堕落的滋味：人不可能永远活在伊甸园中。

S.J.库切在撰写历史，他也在编造历史。信史不信，历史文本与小说文本原来如此相似。“重要之处是历史之哲学”，这是《讲述》的卷首所引的福楼拜名言。通过《幽暗之地》，库切不仅对越南战争和他自己国家的种族歧视发出谴责之声，还生动揭示了意识形态对历史写作的复杂干预。这是一部聪明老练的小说，一部愤怒中夹杂了一丝无奈和绝望的小说。说它有点悲观，因为作者看到，在权力、欲望和激情的作用下，真理和自知之明时常会在我们好探寻又无法摆脱文饰的眼睛前面退却。

我们都负有罪孽，无人例外，霍屯督人也包括在内。他们死于我的手，可天晓得他们是死于什么他们自己犯下的令人难以想象的罪！上帝的判决就是正义，高深莫测，无可指责。上帝的仁慈并不关乎美德。我只是历史手中的工具。

我知道从骨子里吃掉我男人气概的是什么，吞掉本应滋养我的食物的是什么。它是个东西，一个孩子，但不是我的孩子。一个小孩，曾经躺在我的身体中央。它吮吸我的鲜血，靠我的废物成长，而如今，一九七三年，它已变成了一个邪恶、愚蠢的男孩，在我空空的骨头里伸展着四肢，笑嘻嘻地用牙齿啃着我的肝脏，把可恶的污物拉在我的体内，还赖着不走。

枪代表了你自身以外的借以生存的希冀，枪是此次征程中抵御孤立无援的终极防身之物，枪是我们与外界之间的调停人，因之是我们的救星。枪支所传递的信息是，外界的世界不过如此，没什么可惧怕的。枪支使我们不再忧虑我们身躯中的生命，它把我们需要的证据献于我们的脚下让我们明白：这是一个有死亡因而才是一个生机盎然的世界。

对于一只在你脚前喘着气垂死的野兔来说，死是符合逻辑的救赎。它或是在世上活着，或是死去成为他物，我都会感到满意。如若它在我的体内，也就不会死去。我们知道还没人会恨自己的肉体，而肉体不会自己杀死自己。每一宗自杀都是另类杀手的告白，而并非是自愿的献祭。

真正的野蛮是什么呢？野蛮是一种生活方式，蔑视人的生命的价值，从别人的痛苦中得到感官的快乐。

Once upon a time a creative person himself,he is now a failed creative person who lives vicariously off true creative people.

I must pull myself together. I believe in my work. I am my work.

... Everyone praised me. It is only recently that I have begun to falter. It has been a bewildering experience, though, being possessed of a high degree of consciousness, I have never been unprepared for it. ... Disobedience does not come easily to me.

... nobody is ever missing. Not, if I were to commit myself body and soul to some fiction or other, would I choose any fiction but my own. I am still the captain of my soul.

We are all more or less guilty; the offense is less significant than the sin; and I know my wide well, having contributed much to her making.

I am the warm, industrious genius of the household weaving my protective fabrications.

Print-reading is a slave habit. I discovered this truth, as I discovered all the truths in my Vietnam repoprt, by introspection.

Szell reports that a camp authority which randomly and at random times selects subjects for punishment, while maintaining the *appearance* of selectivity, is consistently successful in breaking down group morale.

Until we reveal to ourselves and revel in the true meaning of out acts we will go on suffering the double penalty of guilt and ineffectualness.

I speak in troubled times and tell you how to be as children again. I speak to the broken halves of all out selves and tell them to embrace, loving the worst in us equally with the best.

There was an abstract pleasure in eating into the finite number of miles that would take me home, so I pursues my straddle-legged hobble in good spirit.

I was disappointed to see no faith in his eyes. If he had believed in me, or indeed in anything, he would have recovered. But he had the constitution of a slave, resilient under the everyday blows of life, frail under disaster.

Would I be able to translate myself soberly across the told tale, getting back to a dual, decent farmer's life in the shortest possible time, or would I weaken and in a fit of boredom set out down a new path, implicate myself in a new life, ...

(... We hunt in vain for a British exporter of virtues of humility, respect, and diligence. In the things of this life, said Zwingli, it is the labourer who stands nearest to God.)

He could not see that the course of the river was plagued with falls and rapids, or that it debouched on a particularly desolate strip of coast. He dreamed a father-dream of rafts laden with produce sailing down to the sea and the waiting schooners.