David James Duncan, The Brothers K
"But what really won me over was his butt. What finally made it impossible for me not to like the man was how right out there on the Adventist basepaths, right in front of eighty or ninety of the kind of pious adult spectators who spent their every Sabbath if not their entire lives trying to forget the existence of things like butts, Beal's buns were trying to light a fire by friction inside his jeans; they were gyrating like a washing machine with its load off balance; they were thrashing against his pants like two big halibut against the bottom of a boat. And the wonderful thing, the amazing thing, was how once his older audience got over the shock of it, they began to look amused at, then fascinated by, and finally downright grateful toward his writhing reminder that yes, buns did exist, and yes, every one of us owned not one but two of the things, and yes, like the God who created them in His Image, they did indeed move in mysterious ways."
7 Quotes
"But what really won me over was his butt. What finally made it impossible for me not to like the man was how right out there on the Adventist basepaths, right in front of eighty or ninety of the kind of pious adult spectators who spent their every Sabbath if not their entire lives trying to forget the existence of things like butts, Beal's buns were trying to light a fire by friction inside his jeans; they were gyrating like a washing machine with its load off balance; they were thrashing against his pants like two big halibut against the bottom of a boat. And the wonderful thing, the amazing thing, was how once his older audience got over the shock of it, they began to look amused at, then fascinated by, and finally downright grateful toward his writhing reminder that yes, buns did exist, and yes, every one of us owned not one but two of the things, and yes, like the God who created them in His Image, they did indeed move in mysterious ways."
"لكن ما أسرني حقًا كان مؤخرته. ما جعل من المستحيل عليّ ألا أحب الرجل أخيرًا هو كيف أن أرداف بيل، هناك على أرض ملعب السبتيين، أمام ثمانين أو تسعين من المتفرجين البالغين الأتقياء الذين أمضوا كل سبت إن لم يكن حياتهم كلها في محاولة نسيان وجود أشياء مثل الأرداف، كانت تحاول إشعال نار بالاحتكاك داخل بنطاله؛ كانت تدور كغسالة حمولتها غير متوازنة؛ كانت تضرب بنطاله كسمكتي حليبوت كبيرتين تضربان قاع قارب. والشيء الرائع، الشيء المذهل، هو كيف أن جمهوره الأكبر سنًا، بعد أن تجاوزوا صدمة المشهد، بدأوا ينظرون إليه بتسلية، ثم بانبهار، وأخيرًا بامتنان صريح تجاه تذكيره المتلوّي بأن نعم، الأرداف موجودة، ونعم، كل واحد منا يمتلك ليس واحدة بل اثنتين منها، ونعم، مثل الإله الذي خلقها على صورته، فإنها تتحرك حقًا بطرق غامضة."
David James Duncan, The Brothers K
"I'd trapped myself in a script... But to be scripted at all is to be prepackaged, programmed, pinned to a page. Only the unwritten can truly live a life. So who I was, what I was, had to be unwritten."
"لقد حاصرتُ نفسي في نصٍّ مكتوب... لكن أن تكون مكتوبًا على الإطلاق يعني أن تكون مُعدًّا سلفًا، مُبرمجًا، مُثبّتًا على صفحة. وحده غير المكتوب من يستطيع حقًا أن يعيش حياة. لذا، كان عليّ أن أمحو من كنتُه، وما كنتُه."
David James Duncan, The Brothers K
"When Peter renounced the world he grew up in and the people he grew up with, I believe it was exactly as heroic as that of a person who, finding himself prone to violent seasickness, renounces yachting. Hell, Pete was hardly ‘in the world’ in the first place. That was just the problem. He knew more about 13th century Sufi Orders and the Ptolemaic Universe than the rivers and hills and sewers and mills in southwestern Washington."
"عندما تخلى بيتر عن العالم الذي نشأ فيه وعن الناس الذين ترعرع معهم، أعتقد أن فعله كان بطولياً تماماً كفعل شخص يجد نفسه عرضة لدوار البحر الشديد فيتخلى عن هواية اليخوت. بل إن بيتر لم يكن "في العالم" أصلاً. تلك كانت المشكلة تحديداً. فقد كان يعرف عن الطرق الصوفية في القرن الثالث عشر وعن الكون البطلمي أكثر مما يعرف عن الأنهار والتلال والمجاري والمطاحن في جنوب غرب واشنطن."
David James Duncan, The Brothers K
"I gave him everything from my lunches I hate, which is called Charity."
"أعطيته كل ما أكرهه من غدائي، وهذا ما يُسمى صدقة."
David James Duncan, The Brothers K
"--I truly and deeply wanted to kill him. And I believe I could have done it, with nothing but my hands. But all of a sudden, out of nowhere, Peter had an arm around me. "Let it go, Kade," he was whispering very gently, though his arm was nearly crushing me. "Open your fists," he said, "and let go of the coals."
David James Duncan, The Brothers K
"I didn't hurt anymore, didn't feel like hiding anymore, wasn't scared anymore. Because I wasn't anything anymore. Not anything I love or know or care about. Because thou shalt not kill, Kade. Thou shalt not kill. With all my heart I believed this. And I killed. So what am I now? And why should I live? How am I even alive? Because if this is what our lives are - if doing this to others before they do it unto us is all our lives are - we're already dead."
David James Duncan, The Brothers K
"I started having doubts right on top of my certainty."
David James Duncan, The Brothers K
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