“…We could transmit the contents of the Internet. Such a large corpus — with its text, pictures, videos and sounds — would allow clever extraterrestrials to decipher much about our society, and even formulate questions that could be answered with the material in hand. Sending the web on its way would take months if a radio transmitter were used. A powerful laser, conveying bits much like an optical fiber, could launch these data in a few days.”
—Seth Shostack

I want to ride the long smooth tan body
of California, I want to eat the bear of the flag
of California, I want to roll like a corpse off the highway
of your chase scenes, I want my perfect teeth
preserved, California, my teeth buried
in the earth like a curse, California, and won’t you show me
where the bodies are kept, California,
won’t you show me, show me, show me.
—Sarah Holland-Batt

That night at the hotel, in our room with the long empty hall outside and our shoes outside the door, a thick carpet on the floor of the room, outside the windows the rain falling and in the room light and pleasant and cheerful, then the light out and it exciting with smooth sheets and the bed comfortable, feeling that we had come home, feeling no longer alone, waking in the night to find the other one there, and not gone away; all other things were unreal. We slept when we were tired and if we woke the other one woke too so one was not alone. Often a man wishes to be alone and a girl wishes to be alone too and if they love each other they are jealous of that in each other, but I can truly say we never felt that. We could feel alone when we were together, alone against the others. It has only happened to me like that once. I have been alone while I was with many girls and that is the way that you can be most lonely. But we were never lonely and never afraid when we were together. I know that the night is not the same as the day: that all things are different, that the things of the night cannot be explained in the day, because they do not then exist, and the night can be a dreadful time for lonely people once their loneliness has started. But with Catherine there was almost no difference in the night except that it was an even better time. If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that it will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.

—A Farewell to Arms

“Do you want me to do anything, Cat? Can I get you anything?”

Catherine smiled. “No.” Then a little later, “You won’t do our things with another girl, or say the same things, will you?”

“Never.”

“I want you to have girls, though.”

“I don’t want them.”

—A Farewell to Arms

“I wish we’d gotten married.”

“I suppose it would have been better. But when could we, darling?”

“I don’t know.”

“I know one thing. I’m not going to be married in this splendid matronly state.”

“You’re not matronly.”

“Oh yes, I am, darling. The hairdresser asked me if this was our first. I lied and said no, we had two boys and two girls.”

“When will we be married?”

“Any time after I’m thin again. We want to have a splendid wedding with every one thinking what a handsome young couple.”

“And you’re not worried?”

“Darling, why should I be worried? The only time I ever felt badly was when I felt like a whore in Milan and that only lasted seven minutes and besides it was the room furnishings. Don’t I make you a good wife?”

“You’re a lovely wife.”

“Then don’t be too technical, darling. I’ll marry you as soon as I’m thin again.”

—A Farewell to Arms

 "You’re not really afraid of the rain are you?“

"Not when I’m with you.”

“Why are you afraid of it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Tell me.”

“Don’t make me.”

“Tell me.”

“No.”

“Tell me.”

“All right. I’m afraid of the rain because sometimes I see me dead in it.”

“No.”

“And sometimes I see you dead in it.”

“That’s more likely.”

“No, it’s not, darling. Because I can keep you safe. I know I can. But nobody can help themselves.”

“Please stop it. I don’t want you to get Scotch and crazy tonight. We won’t be together much longer.”

“No, but I am Scotch and crazy. But I’ll stop it. It’s all nonsense.”

“Yes it’s all nonsense.”

“It’s all nonsense. It’s only nonsense. I’m not afraid of the rain. I’m not afraid of the rain. Oh, oh, God, I wish I wasn’t.” She was crying. I comforted her and she stopped crying. But outside it kept on raining.

—A Farewell to Arms

“Now and then a teacher or an acquaintance would toss her a few friendly words. Naturally, if she hadn’t needed them so badly, she could have collected ten times as many. But she had never heard of supply and demand, wasn’t aware of such a thing as a seller’s market, and wouldn’t have applied it to her own case if she had. Like a solitary bowerbird, she hid these tiny pieces of blue glass around her nest and treasured them, though frequent inspection soon took their color away.”

—from “Alice” by Elizabeth Harrower

“The idea of hostages is very deep. Becoming pregnant is taking a hostage—as is running a pawnshop, being a bank, receiving a letter, taking a photograph, or listening to a confidence. Every love story, every commercial trade, every secret, every matter in which trust is involved, is a gentle transaction of hostages. Everything is, to a degree, in the custody of every other thing. Blackmail, kidnapping, then, are among the extreme violations of the deal. Anyway, I seem to be about to have Jim’s child; at least, I think I will, and the thing is I haven’t mentioned it to Jim.”
—from “Speedboat“ by Renata Adler

“Like most lonely women, like most women of all kinds, Margaret Dageman had an imaginary lover, with whom she entered the conversation and even the gossip of her friends. I used to think this sort of gossip was specific to girls or women who were left out. An imaginary lover explained it. He was married. He was in Korea. He was married and in Korea. He was not married or in Korea, he was the end of some line where a train must be taken. Wherever he was, he was not placed to appear or to walk them to the door. I used to think it was only lonely women who, according to temperament, flatly said, or shyly intimated, or just insisted that they had, in fact, this lover, this escort, this beau, this young man, this fiancé, whatever they called him, whom social necessity had obliged them to invent. But it is not so. It is not so. Most women have had them, at some time in their lives, or all their lives. And I do not mean the private man of daydreams or psychoanalytic literature. It is of the nature of this invented lover that his existence be a matter of public knowledge and, with luck, belief. If a woman were able to manage her own news to perfection, he would be thought to be her profoundest secret, the steady center of her emotional life.

"I have known a woman’s own husband to be the central character in such a fantasy; quite often, in the lives of intelligent or worldly women, the man himself is real. Quite often too, like most thoughts and suspicions, the fantasy has truth in it; the invention may be reciprocal, or shared. In fact, the only thing this secret lover has in common with any classic rape fantasy is this: that is important that this story come out in spite of a woman’s reticence and discretion, against her will. This leads to any number of false confidences, any number of lies told in the false confessional mode. It is a way for a romantic temperament to generate its story line, its lifelong plot. He may be elusive. He may be importunate. He may be neither, or both. He can be anything. The major difference between Margaret Dageman’s imaginary lover and anybody else’s was only that she engaged in a bitter, an epic quarrel with him.”
—from “Speedboat“ by Renata Adler