Author: Carson McCullers

Cited by

• Mary Gaitskill (1)
  • IN: Because They Wanted To: Stories (1997) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: The most outlandish people can be the stimulus for love. . . . A most mediocre person can be the object of a love which is wild, extravagant, and beautiful as the poison lilies of the swamp. A good man may be the stimulus for a love both violent and debased, or a jabbering madman may bring about in the soul of someone a tender and simple idyll. Therefore, the value and quality of any love is determined solely by the lover himself. It is for this reason that most of us would rather love than be loved. Almost everyone wants to be the lover. And the curt truth is that, in a deep secret way, the state of being beloved is intolerable to many.
    FROM: The Ballad of the Sad Café, (1951), Short Story, US
• Alix Ohlin (1)
  • IN: Signs and Wonders (2012) Fiction, NULL
    EPIGRAPH: So there is only one thing for the lover to do. He must house his love within himself as best he can; he must create for himself a whole new inward world -- a world of intense and strange, complete in himself. Let it be added that this lover about whom we speak need not necessarily be a young man saving for a wedding ring -- this lover can be man, woman, child, or indeed any human creature on this earth.
    FROM: The Ballad of the Sad Cafe, (1951), Novel, US
• Ali Land (1)
  • IN: Good Me Bad Me (2017) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: But the hearts of small children are delicate organs. A cruel beginning in this world can twist them into curious shapes.
    FROM: The Ballad of the Sad Café, (1951), Book, US
• Audrey Chin (2)
  • IN: Nine Cuts (2015) Fiction, Singaporean
    EPIGRAPH: Maybe when people longed for a thing that bad the longing made them trust in anything that might give it to them.
    FROM: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, (1940), Novel, US