Comment voyager avec un saumon (1992) - Umberto Eco

A part ça, vous avez la lavasse. Généralement composé de chicorée pourrie, d'ossements de cadavres et de quelques grains de café récupérés parmi les déchets d'un hôpital pour syphilitiques, il est reconnaissable à son incomparable arôme de pieds marinés dans de l'eau de vaisselle.
(p. 53)



En somme, et pour conclure, la règle d'or du présentateur de catalogue d'art est de décrire l'oeuvre de manière que la description s'applique non seulement à d'autres tableaux mais aussi à l'expérience que l'on a en regardant la vitrine d'un boulanger. Si le PDC écrit "Dans les tableaux de Delacroûte, la perception des formes n'est jamais adéquation inerte à la donnée de la sensation. Delacroûte nous dit qu'il n'est point de perception qui ne soit interprétation et travail, et que le passage du senti au perçu est activité, praxis, être-dans-le-monde comme construction d'Abschattungen découpées intentionnellement dans la chair même de la chose-en-soi", le lecteur reconnaît la vérité de Delacroûte car elle correspond aux mécanismes grâce auxquels il distingue, chez le boulanger, un pain de campagne d'un bâtard.
(p. 116)



Au début, les médias nous ont persuadés que l'imaginaire était réel, maintenant ils nous convainquent que le réel est imaginaire, et plus les écrans télé nous donnent à voir de la réalité, plus le quotidien devient cinématographique. Jusqu'à ce que nous en arrivions à penser - ainsi que le voulaient certains philosophes - que nous sommes seuls au monde, et que tout le reste est le film que Dieu ou un malin génie nous projette devant les yeux.
(p. 139)



Une telle montre permettrait de ne plus prendre en compte le monde extérieur. Il suffirait de la consulter toute notre vie durant, et le temps raconté par elle se transformerait, passant d'une image immobile de l'éternité à une éternité en acte, où le temps ne serait qu'une fabuleuse hallucination produite par ce miroir magique.
(p. 164)



En outre, certains citrons siciliens présentent un camaïeu chromatique strictement identique à celui des canaris portugais, on a la preuve que la méthode chromatico-naturaliste pour la nomenclature des couleurs ne présente aucune garantie scientifique.
(p. 255)

Books v. cigarettes (1946) - George Orwell

I have also listed at their full price the books that have been given to me, and those that I have temporarily borrowed, or borrowed and kept. This is because book-giving, book-borrowing and book-stealing more or less even out.
(p.2)



Many of the people who came tu us were of the kind who would be a nuisance anywhere but have special opportunities in a bookshop. For example, the dear old lady who "wants a book for an invalid" (a very common demand, that) and the other dear old lady who read such a nice book in 1897 and wonders whether you can find her a copy. Unfortunately she doesn't remember the title or the author's name or what the book was about, but she does remember that it had a red cover.
(p.8)



At present we know only that the imagination, like certain wild animals, will not breed in captivity. Any writer or journalist who denies that fact - and nearly all the current praise of the Soviet Union contains or implies such a denial - is, in effect, demanding his own destruction.
(p.41)



I did not question the prevailing standards, because so far as I could see there were no others. How could the rich, the strong, the elegant, the fashionable, the powerful, be in the wrong ? It was their world, and the rules they made for it must be the right ones. And yet from a very early age I was aware of the impossibility of any subjective conformity. Always at the centre of my heart the inner self seemed to be awake, pointing out the difference between the moral obligation and the pyschological fact. It was the same in all matters, wordly or otherwordly.
(p.111)



At that time I could not see beyond the moral dilemma that is presented to the weak in a world governed by the strong : Break the rules, or perish. I did not see that in that case the weak have the right to make a different set of rules for themselves; because, even if such an idea had occurred to me, there was no one in my environment who could have confirmed me in it.
(p.115)



For years I had been resolved - unconsciously at first, but consciously later on - that when once my scholarship was won I would "slack off" and cram no longer.  This resolve, by the way, was so fully carried out that between the ages of thirteen and twenty-two or three I hardly ever did a stroke of available work.
(p.116)



"Good-bye," Flip's parting smile seemed to say; "it's not worth quarelling now. You haven't made much of a success on your time at St Cyprian's, have you ? And I don't suppose you'll get on awfully well at public school either. We made a mistake, really, in wasting our time and money on you. This kind of education hasn't much to offer to a boy with your background and your outlook. Oh don't think we don't understand you ! We know all about those ideas you have at the back of your head, we know you disbelieve in everything we've taught you, and we know you aren't in the least grateful for all we've done for you. But there's no use in bringing it all up now. We arent' responsible for you any longer, and we shan't be seeing you again . Let's just admit that you're one of our failures and part without ill-feeling. And so, good-bye".
That at least was what I read into her face.
(p.117)