Child philosophy...

 

“Do you think that animals have a soul?” Andrée asked. “If they don't, that's just too unfair! They're just as unhappy as people are. And they don't understand why. It's worse when you don't understand.”

 

— Inseparable, Simone de Beauvoir, pg. 35

Revenge for the smiles

Sydney's eyes went over Tessa's shoulder, fixing the doorway; Tessa's little smiles at her withered unnoticed.

"Hasn't Mrs. Kerr come in yet?" said Tessa at last, her penetration innocently revenging the death of the smiles.

— The Hotel, Elizabeth Bowen, pg. 24

National lunch struggles

Miss Pym [who had been crying] looked diffidently at the waiter. She had cut herself off from the omelette, so he shrugged his shoulders and brought her up a plate of macaroni from the servants' lunch. This the bruised creature pitifully but with evidence of hunger began to eat; the traditional British struggle with macaroni brought her down sharply from tragedy to farce.

—The Hotel, Elizabeth Bowen, pg. 26

Questions while stranded at sea

 Why are people named after flowers and not fruits? There is nobody named Strawberry [Fresa] or Raspberry [Frambuesa] or Apricot [Albaricoque], which are lovelier than Lily [Liria].

What is falling in love, anyway? Letting go of disgust, of fear, letting go of everything.

Flying fish remind me of butterflies in flight.

What is magical about the sea is that living deep inside it no one can speak.

—The Promise, by Silvina Ocampo, pg. 32

So cheesy it should be served with crackers...

 Soon, just as a wind moist with rain loosens, detaches, scatters, rots the most fragrant flowers, the sorrow of sensing the loss of her friend drowned all these voluptuous thoughts beneath a wave of tears. The face of our souls changes as often as the face of the sky. Our poor lives drift at whim between the currents of a voluptuousness where they dare not stay and the harbour of virtue that they don't have the strength to reach.

— The Mysterious Correspondent, Marcel Proust, pg. 51