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The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff

“It was somehow clear, even then, that the monster had been lonely. The folds above its eye made the old face look wistful, and it emanated such a strong sense of solitude that each human standing in the park that day felt miles from the others, though we were shoulder-to-shoulder, touching. Later, we would hear that when the divers couldn’t reach the bottom of our lake, they called in deep-sea pods to search for another beast like the one that surfaced that day. We would hear that, scour as they might, they couldn’t find another beast like ours, only detritus: rusted tractors and plastic buoys, and even an antique phonograph. They found a yellow-painted phaeton in its entirety, the bones of a small spaniel inside. They also found dozens of human skeletons, drowned or dumped corpses, arranged side-by-side in some trick of current or metaphysics, on a shallow shelf near Kingfisher Tower, beside Judith’s Point.” Read more...

The Accidental by Ali Smith

“She looks at the way the sun comes through the leaves above her head i.e. the story of Icarus who had the wings his father made which the sun melted when he flew too close. She wonders what the difference would have been if the father had made the wings for a girl instead, who maybe would have known how to use them properly. But probably this would depend on how old the girl was, because if she was Astrid’s age it would be okay. But if she was any younger it would be dangerous, she would be too young, and if she was any older she would be worrying about people seeing up her skirt and the sun melting her eye make-up.” Read more...

Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris

“But it wasn’t just our jobs at stake, was it? When we had trouble nailing an ad, our reputations were on the line. A good deal of our self-esteem was predicated on the belief that we were good marketers, that we understood what made the world tick — that in fact, we told the world how to tick. We got it, we got it better than others, we got it so well we could teach it to them. Using a wide variety of media, we could demonstrate for our fellow Americans their anxieties, desires, insufficiencies, and frustrations — and how to assuage them all. We informed you in six seconds that you needed something you didn’t know you lacked. We made you want anything that anyone willing to pay us wanted you to want. We were hired guns of the human soul. We pulled the strings on the people across the land and by god they got to their feet and they danced for us.” Read more...

Perfume by Patrick Süskind

“Grenouille was terrified. What happens, he thought, if the scent, once I possess it...what happens if it runs out? It’s not the same as it is in your memory, where all scents are indestructible. The real thing gets used up in this world. It’s transient. And by the time it has been used up, the source I took it from will no longer exist. And I will be as naked as before and will have to get along with surrogates, just like before. No, it will be even worse than before! For in the meantime I will have known it and possessed it, my own splendid scent, and I will not be able to forget it, because I never forget a scent. And for the rest of my life I will feed on it in my memory, just as I was feeding right now from the premonition of what I will possess...What do I need it for at all?” Read more...

Ghostwalk by Rebecca Stott

“‘They discovered that when two subatomic particles — that’s photons, electrons, or qubits — collide or interact and then move apart, they retain a kind of connection even if they’re at they’re at opposite ends of the universe. They have become entangled...If moments in time become entangled in the same way that photons become entangled, then there might be strange connections between the past and the present, moments in time acting in the same way, like the particles; one moment turns one way, the other follows — shadowing. And that’s mind-blowing. See, I’m a rationalist who believes in a supernatural world, because I live in it. Science doesn’t reduce things, or explain mysteries away; it just discovers stranger and stranger things.’” Read more...

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

“‘Why does that obstinate little voice in our heads torment us so?’ he said, looking round the table. ‘Could it be because it reminds us that we are alive, of our mortality, of our individual souls — which, after all, we are too afraid to surrender but yet make us feel more miserable than any other thing? But isn’t it also pain that often makes us most aware of self? It is a terrible thing to learn as a child that one is a being separate from all the world, that no one and no thing hurts along with one’s burned tongues and skinned knees, that one’s aches and pains are all one’s own. Even more terrible, as we grow older, to learn that no person, no matter how beloved, can ever truly understand us. Our own selves make us most unhappy, and that’s why we’re so anxious to lose them, don’t you think?’” Read more...

The Devil You Know by Mike Carey

“‘I stick with Blake,’ I said, ‘and I draw a line. Between what’s proved and what’s just jerking off — premature reification. If I see my Aunt Emily get decapitated in a freak piano-tuning accident, and then a bodiless shape that looks just like Auntie Em comes walking through my bedroom wall at three in the morning with its head tucked underneath its arm, I don’t just jump for the nearest conclusion — which is that whatever is on the label has to be in the box.’” Read more...

God is Dead by Ron Currie, Jr.

“Correct. The answer is, I don’t have an answer. I can offer no comfort and little insight. I am not your God. Or if I am, I’m no God you can seek out for deliverance or explanation. I’m the kind of God who would eat you without compunction if I were hungry. You’re as naked and alone in this world as you were before finding me. And so now the question becomes: Can you abide by this knowledge? Or will it destroy you, empty you out, make you a husk among husks?” Read more...

Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz

“Most people desperately desire to believe that they are part of a great mystery, that Creation is a work of grace and glory, not merely the result of random forces colliding. Yet each time that they are given but one reason to doubt, a worm in the apple of the heart makes them turn away from a thousand proofs of the miraculous, whereupon they have a drunkard’s thirst for cynicism, and they feed upon despair as a starving man upon a loaf of bread.” Read more...

Indecision by Benjamin Kunkel

“Along with the morningtime coolness there was also something new in the air: this slight kind of back-to-school tightness. The sunlight seemed faintly to smell of sharpened pencils, a sensation that comported very nicely with the feeling of renewed education you get from being psychoanalyzed. And along with the back-to-school flavor there was a definite edge of anticipation in the air as well. Because going to school year after year — it really schools you, and so at every onset of fall I’d always feel a certain seasonal imminence of big games and difficult exams, new crushes, homeroom disasters. At the beginning of every school year and now into adult life I’d walk toward class or work in the morning and think Something big is going to happen this year. At some point during these nine months that will seem longer than a year, something big is definitely going to take place. The statistical near certainty, combined with the utter vagueness, sent the same chill through me that was already in the air.” Read more...

Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates

“Our ability to measure and apportion time affords an almost endless source of comfort. ‘Synchronize watches at oh six hundred,’ says the infantry captain, and each of his huddled liuetenants finds a respite from fear in the act of bringing two tiny pointers into jeweled alignment while tons of heavy artillery go fluttering overhead: the prosaic, civilian-looking dial of the watch has restored, however briefly, an illusion of personal control. Good, it counsels, looking tidily up from the hairs and veins of each terribly vulnerable wrist; fine: so far, everything's happening right on time.” Read more...

Oh The Glory of It All by Sean Wilsey

“It’s funny how easy it is to take things away from children. It only takes desire. So easy—to confuse and make kids bad, to hurt and get them lost. It is a snap for even the weakest, dullest adult. Kids have no power. Only emotions. Though everyone remembers the power of their childish emotions so well. They echo on through your whole life. Down a corridor until you arrive at a room full of them. They can push you far, far into your life before you are even aware of them, let alone reconsider them.

“Which raises the question: If parents have absolute power over children, how can that not corrupt?” Read more...

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

“By living our lives, we nurture death. True as this might be, it was only one of the truths we had to learn. What I learned from Naoko’s death was this: no truth can cure the sorrow we feel from losing a loved one. No truth, no sincerity, no strength, no kindness can cure that sorrow. All we can do is see through it to the end and learn something from it, but what we learn will be no help in facing the next sorrow that comes to us without warning.” Read more...

Self-Help by Lorrie Moore

"Begin to wonder what you do write about. Or if you have anything to say. Or if there even is such a thing as a thing to say. Limit these thoughts to no more than ten minutes a day; like sit-ups, then can make you thin. You will read somewhere that all writing has to do with one's genitals. Don't dwell on this. It will make you nervous." Read more...

The Dead Fathers Club by Matt Haig

"She said I hate God.
I said What?
She said I hate God.
I said Why?
She said Because he says you cant do things like you cant steal. But he steals. He steals people. He stole Dad and he let Mum die and he saw her in pain and he saw her praying and he didnt do anything. God just looks down at people asking him for help and he doesnt do anything because he knows if they are hurt theyll want to believe in him more and you wouldnt like a person like that so why like him just because hes God?" Read more...