# Quote — Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow

> This ascent will be betrayed to Gravity. But the Rocket engine, the deep cry of combustion that jars the soul, promises escape. The victim, in bondage to falling, rises on a promise, a prophecy, of Escape....
>
> Moving now toward the kind of light where at last the apple is apple-colored. The knife cuts through the apple like a knife cutting an apple. Everything is where it is, no clearer than usual, but certainly more present. So much has to be left behind now, so quickly.

- Author: [Thomas Pynchon](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-pynchon.md)
- Book: [Gravity's Rainbow](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-pynchon/gravitys-rainbow.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Pynchon#Gravity's_Rainbow_(1973)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-pynchon/gravitys-rainbow/this-ascent-will

## More from this book

> "The edge of evening … the long curve of people all wishing on the first star.... Always remember those men and women along the thousands of miles of land and sea. The true moment of shadow is the moment in which you see the point of light in the sky. The single point, and the Shadow that has just gathered you in its sweep ..."
>
> Always remember.
>
> The first star hangs between his feet.
>
> Now —

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-pynchon/gravitys-rainbow/the-edge-of-evening.md)

> It's a giant factory-state here, a City of the Future full of extrapolated 1930's swoop-facaded and balconied skyscrapers, lean chrome caryatids with bobbed hairdos, classy airships of all descriptions drifting in the boom and hush of the city abysses, golden lovelies sunning in roof gardens and turning to wave as you pass.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-pynchon/gravitys-rainbow/its-a-giant.md)

> "You." A finger the size of a corncob, an inch from Slothrop's nose.
>
> ...
>
> "Look," Slothrop's friend producing a kraft-paper envelope that even in the gloom Slothrop can tell is fat with American Army yellow-seal scrip, "I want you to hold this for me, till I ask for it back. It looks like Italo is going to get here before Tamara, and I'm not sure which one"
>
> "At this rate, Tamara's gonna get here before tonight," Slothrop interjects in a Groucho Marx voice.
>
> "Don't try to undermine my confidence in you," advises the Large One. "You're the man."

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-pynchon/gravitys-rainbow/you-a-finger.md)