Sophie's Choice — Vocabulary
William Styron
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Certainly he had not been entirely unaware of the camps; perhaps, Sophie thought, the enormity of their existence had been for Nathan, as for so many Americans, part of a drama too far away, too abstract, too foreign (and thus too hard to comprehend) to register fully on the mind.p.350.6alternate pages12 more

Abstracted, stranded in her memory, she seemed not to hear, and also was plainly close to tears.p.394.1alternate pages12 more

We would of course have to get married, once established in Virginia; the ethos of the time and place would certainly permit no casual cohabitation.p.490.1alternate pages10 more

I had read quite a bit about sexual problems while studying at that noted athenaeum of psychology, Duke University, and had come away with some fairly well established facts: that male primates in captivity, for instance, when denied female companionship, will try to bugger each other, often with gleeful success, and that many prisoners after long periods of incarceration will turn so readily to homosexual activity that it will almost appear to be the norm.p.477.3alternate pages10 more

He had suffered boredom and anxiety, and even revulsion, but no sense of sin from the bestial crimes he had been party to, nor had he felt that in sending thousands of the wretched innocent to oblivion he had transgressed against divine law.p.532.7alternate pages14 more

Hadn't her last note spelled it out, so plainly that an innocent six-year-old could have divined its meaning, and hadn't I been negligent, feloniously so, in failing to hurry after her immediately rather than taking that brainless bus ride across the Potomac?p.551.1alternate pages14 more

In all truth I had not invited this prodigy of a tongue; turning, I had merely wished to look at her face, expecting only that the expression of aesthetic delight I might find there would correspond to what I knew was my own.†p.183.2alternate pages7 more

Throughout his long life his concern for the past, for his family and its lineage, had been both reverent and inspired—a man quite as blissfully content to browse through the correspondence and memorabilia of some long-defunct, dull and distant cousin as is a spellbound Victorian scholar who has stumbled on a drawer full of heretofore unknown obscene love letters of Robert and Elizabeth Browning.†p.30.8alternate pages7 more

The fury and commotion would yield nothing.†p.431.2alternate pages7 more

I have spoken several times about Sophie's reticence concerning Auschwitz, her firm and generally unyielding silence about that fetid sinkhole of her past.†p.236.4alternate pages7 more

Nor was there any pathology here, anything to do with sinister psychic repression which might have driven me to seek medical care.p.131.9alternate pages13 more

A secretary told me that Larry was in Toronto, where he was attending a professional convention.p.478.6alternate pages6 more

Among other things, he was rigorously conventional and had quickly accommodated himself to McGraw-Hill's tidy, colorless and archconservative mold.p.18.1alternate pages6 more

Oh, my cup turned into a spillway flooding across the spotless carpet, out the door down Pierrepont Street, across all the twilit carnal reaches of Brooklyn.†p.182.6alternate pages9 more

European women often boss their men too, but with a beguiling subtlety unknown to most American females.†p.79.7alternate pages7 more

There is much to be said, however, for the delectable and leisurely anticipation which accompanies the knowledge that it is all ready and waiting and, so to speak, in the bag.†p.130.3alternate pages7 more

For McGraw-Hill was, after all, in spite of its earnest literary veneer, a monstrous paradigm of American business.†p.18.3alternate pages4 more

It was a grand display of wizardry, Nathan's production-inspired mockery of such outrageous, runaway, sublime silliness that I found myself emulating my father, gasping, shorn of strength, collapsing sideways on the greasy banquette.p.199.8alternate pages4 more

Although I can no longer remember for certain, it must have been the same sort of catharsis I was trying to attain in this last section on Leslie—following my meditation on Gide—which I include here.†p.188.1alternate pages5 more

I have to act according to my conscience.p.403.6alternate pages11 more