Corbin and Strauss: Grounded Theory

"As stated previously, a category stands for a phenomenon, that is, a problem, an issue, and event, or a happening that is defined as being significant to respondents...A phenomenon has the ability to express what is going on.

Anselm Strauss and Juliet Corbin, "Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory" p124, second edition

Robert Wilson: What is it?

"The reason I work as an artist is to ask questions. That is to say, What is it? And not to say what something is. For if we know what it is that we're doing there's no reason to do it."

-Robert Wilson

Beckett: Neary's anger

He was sad, with the snarling sadness of the choleric man. With the chop-sticks held like bones between his fingers he kept up a low battuta of anger.

-Beckett, Murphy p72 (battuta is conductor's way of establishing tempo for an orchestra)

Beckett: Murphy's Tripe

"I declare to my God," said Neary, "sometimes you talk as great tripe as Murphy."

"Once a certain degree of insight has been reached," said Wylie, "all men talk, when talk they must, the same tripe."

Samuel Beckett, Murphy p39 (Grove Centenary Edition)

Flaubert: Never Touch Your Idols

Never touch your idols: the gilding will stick to your fingers.

Gustave Flaubert, "Madame Bovary" p263 (Leon re: Emma or the other way around)

Flaubert: Description of Children Playing

The children ran around in their canvas shoes as though it had been a playground, and you could hear the clamour of their voices above the clanging of the bell. It diminished with the
oscillations of the great rope, hanging down from the high belfry, which trailed its end on the floor below.

The swallows were gliding, squeaking, slicing the air with their wings, and hurrying back to their yellow nests, beneath the tiles on the coping. At the far end of the church, a lamp was burning, a night-light wick inside a glass hanging up. From a distance, it looked like a white blotch flickering above the oil. A long ray of sunlight cut right across the nave, making it even darker in the aisles and the niches.

Gustave Flaubert, "Madame Bovary" p103 (Penguin edition)