Don DeLillo

Libra (Contemporary American Fiction)

Nathan Johnson

Mary Frances watched him butter the toast. He held the edges of the slice in his left hand, moved the knife in systematic strokes, over and over. Was he trying to distribute the butter evenly? Or were there other, deeper requirements? It was sad to see him lost in small business, eternally buttering, turning routine into empty compulsion, without meaning or need.

Conor Murphy

He reached across the table and touched her arm as he always did when he thought he might have said something wrong or cut her off. Don't listen to what I say. Trust my hands, my touch.

When they hosed down the floor of the cell block he smelled the earth embedded in concrete—pebbles, gravel, slag and broken stone, all distantly mixed with ammonia, like contempt blended in.

Is it really so strange that she uses the word conspiracy? She is only trying to analyze a whole condensed program of things that are not correct.

Libra (Contemporary American Fiction) quotes

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