“The pure present is an ungraspable advance of the past devouring the future. In truth, all sensation is already memory.” Hoshino looked up, mouth half open, and gazed at her face. “What’s that?” “Henri Bergson,” she replied, licking the semen from the tip of his penis. [...] “I can’t think of anything special, but could you quote some more of that philosophy stuff? I don’t know why, but it might keep me from coming so quick. Otherwise I’ll lose it pretty fast.”

“The pure present is an ungraspable advance of the past devouring the future. In truth, all sensation is already memory.”

“I am Kian.” “Mercy ” she replied. Swallowing hard she forced her gaze away from him. She was being too bold in her perusal but she could not stop looking at him. “Kindness ” he whispered. Their eyes locked and Mercy felt a jolt of some foreign but not unwelcome sensation pierce her. “I could use some of you”he said thoughtfully as his cool gaze devoured her. “Most definitely I could use you.”He rose and walked around the pond perusing her body as he came to stand beside her. “The milk of human kindness how sweet the taste.”He actually licked his lips and Mercy shivered her core heating and wetting. Then he lowered himself until they were eye to eye. “I believe I could drink you dry.”

“This quote – Tess says it to her mother after Alec D’Urberville has had his wicked way with her.”“I know,” muses Kate. “What is he trying to say?”“I don’t know, and I don’t care. I can’t accept these from him. I’ll send them back with an equally baffling quote from some obscure part of the book.”“The bit where Angel Clare says fuck off?” Kate asks with a completely straight face.“Yes, that bit.”

“My wife and I were present at this congress. Sabina told me, "Richard, stand up and wash away this shame from the face of Christ! They are spitting in His face." I said to her, "If I do so, you lose your husband." She replied, "I don't wish to have a coward as a husband.”

“This is my truth. Mom, she sees the future. Me, I can’t look beyond the past. I wish I could.”