
Three O'Clock in the Morning: A Novel

“Balikwas. It’s a word in Tagalog, the main language of the Philippines. It’s not easy to translate. It means something like: jumping suddenly into another situation and being surprised by it, changing your own point of view, and seeing things you thought you knew in a different way.”
Gianrico Carofiglio • Three O'Clock in the Morning: A Novel
The hotel was in an unremarkable modern building, definitely more comfortable than the one we’d been in the first time. It was close to the Canebière, the most famous street in Marseilles, which links the middle-class neighborhood of Réformés to the Vieux Port.
Gianrico Carofiglio • Three O'Clock in the Morning: A Novel
“Fitzgerald was a great writer and an unhappy man. There’s a sentence of his I often think about: ‘In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o’clock in the morning.’”
Gianrico Carofiglio • Three O'Clock in the Morning: A Novel
“The nice thing about jazz is its imperfection. Imperfection in the etymological sense of the word.” “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” “Perfect comes from the Latin perficere, to do something completely. Imperfection, in the etymological sense, is that which isn’t complete. Incompleteness distinguishes jazz from any other kind of music. In
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“I can’t remember how long it’s been since I had two whole days in front of me with no commitments, no obligations, nothing particular to do. That’s what’s strange.” I turned to him. “You know, when I look at you grown-ups, I think you’re trapped by things you don’t actually care about. How does that happen? When does it happen?” He pulled himself
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There are occasions when you need to talk, and you mustn’t take anything for granted. Then there are other occasions when you have to keep silent because there’s something intangible, something precious in the air, and your words might dispel it in an instant. These are two simple concepts. The hard part is to know when to apply one rule and when t
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As we proceeded toward the harbor, in fact, Marseilles turned, before our eyes, into a kind of urban metropolis; every corner presided over by prostitutes and pimps, its streets crisscrossed by groups of hungry-looking youths and punctuated with convenience stores filled to the brim like miniature bazaars, boarded-up shop fronts, restaurants smelli
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The calanque of Morgiou, which was bigger than the others, had a marina with boats and a little fishing village.
Gianrico Carofiglio • Three O'Clock in the Morning: A Novel
My father’s letter to me ended with a quotation from the great mathematician John von Neumann: “If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is.”