Notable quotes, excerpts, and profound lines.

[astrangerhere]

"We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship."

George Orwell in 1984

[kennyc]

Thanks for that!
Nice one!
(on to 1Q84 eh?)

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Thanks for that!
Nice one!
(on to 1Q84 eh?)

Sometime soon. I may not get to it until my Thanksgiving vacation. I'm chained to my desk at work right now and i need hours at a time for Murakami. Might fly through the new Flavia de Luce mystery when I finish '84 because it can be read in such short bits.

"There are some men formed with feelings so blunt, with tempers so cold and phlegmatic, that they can hardly be said to be awake during the whole course of their lives."

Edmund Burke

[Falcao]

Roca attempts to justify himself with his usual skill, thus exposing the alleged need for the violation of the citizens will, "That is the awareness that made it necessary for governments to become electors, to strengthen the State, to give unity to the powers of State, effective power to the principle of authority. We'll see what becomes of free suffrage, when violence threaten again. The lyrical, the naive, those unfamiliar with the country, do not even know what it contains, of course they have not been able to think about all this." Wilde expressed himself about this: "I ​​warn you that if you gave me the option, I would opt for any means least the election by the people; that amorphous animal, brute and mean, that would choose the worst of itself." "What is universal suffrage? The triumph of universal ignorance. What is democracy? The government of the many, that is, the less fit." Juarez Celman accompanied in his concepts to his interior minister and friend, because, according to Astengo Rivero, one of his strongest convictions was as follows: "To consult the people is always to err because they only have turbid opinions."
-- Hector B. Petrocelli, Argentinean Constitutional History

[poohbear_nc]

"The family is the cradle of the world's misinformation."
-Don DeLillo White Noise

[covingtoncat73]

"Mrs. Abernathy's original plan had been to target Samuel and Boswell and bring them straight to her lair. Unfortunately she had reckoned without a number of factors, including:

a) the difficulty of a targeted acquisition between dimensions
b) an ice-cream salesman
c) a police car
d) a van filled with unknown little people."

~From The Infernals by John Connolly

[BenG]

Sometimes when you want to believe so badly, you end up. . . looking too hard.

--Scully, The X-Files Season 2 Episode 5 - Duane Barry

[Angst]

Consistency is the hallmark of the unimaginative.
—Oscar Wilde

An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.
—Oscar Wilde

[covingtoncat73]

"And if I'm right, we're going to need more booze, more ammo, and maybe an extra priest."

~From Hard Day's Knight by John G. Hartness

[covingtoncat73]

"What are the risks?"
"Five percent. At most."
"And that five percent contains the threat of invasion, possible consumption by unknown entities, and the potantial destruction of the entire planet?"
"Possibly
Professor Stefan shurgged. "I can live with that. Anyone for tea?"

~From The Infernals by John Connolly

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by covingtoncat73

"What are the risks?"
"Five percent. At most."
"And that five percent contains the threat of invasion, possible consumption by unknown entities, and the potantial destruction of the entire planet?"
"Possibly
Professor Stefan shurgged. "I can live with that. Anyone for tea?"

~From The Infernals by John Connolly

At the moment, I'm reading John Connolly's The Gates, his first book in that series, and am enjoying it tremendously. I fully plan to read The Infernals. Very funny stuff.

[sun surfer]

This is an excellent thread that I've come to again and again ever since I first started visiting this site.

This is my first contribution:

"[We are] incapable of certain knowledge and of absolute ignorance. We sail within a vast sphere, ever drifting in uncertainty, driven from end to end. When we think to attach ourselves to any point and to fasten to it, it wavers and leaves us; and if we follow it, it eludes our grasp, slips past us, and vanishes for ever. Nothing stays for us. This is our natural condition, and yet most contrary to our inclination; we burn with desire to find solid ground and an ultimate sure foundation whereon to build a tower reaching to the Infinite. But our whole groundwork cracks, and the earth opens to abysses."

-Blaise Pascal, Pensées

[BenG]

In many college English courses the words myth and symbol are given a tremendous charge of significance. You just ain't no good unless you can see a symbol hiding, like a scared gerbil, under every page. And in many creative writing courses the little beasts multiply, the place swarms with them. What does this Mean? What does that Symbolize? What is the Underlying Mythos? Kids come lurching out of such courses with a brain full of gerbils. And they sit down and write a lot of empty pomposity, under the impression that that's how Melville did it.
~Ursula K. Le Guin, The Language Of The Night: Essays On Fantasy And Science Fiction

[gmw]

Originally Posted by BenG

[...] And they sit down and write a lot of empty pomposity, under the impression that that's how Melville did it.
~Ursula K. Le Guin, The Language Of The Night: Essays On Fantasy And Science Fiction

And isn't it?

(Sorry, I couldn't resist - having finally read Moby Dick after many years of avoidance.)