Notable quotes, excerpts, and profound lines.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by astrangerhere

Raymond Carver | “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love”

A Wonderful Story! A wonderful quote!

[bfisher]

How Robert Caro starts to write a book:
"I can’t start writing a book until I’ve thought it through and can see it whole in my mind. So before I start writing, I boil the book down to three paragraphs, or two or one—that’s when it comes into view. That process might take weeks. And then I turn those paragraphs into an outline of the whole book. That’s what you see up here on my wall now—twenty-seven typewritten pages. That’s the fifth volume. Then, with the whole book in mind, I go chapter by chapter. I sit down at the typewriter and type an outline of that chapter, let’s say if it’s a long chapter, seven pages—it’s really the chapter in brief, without any of the supporting evidence. Then, each chapter gets a notebook, which I fill with all the materials I want to use—quotations and facts pulled from all of the research I’ve done."
The Paris Review, "Robert Caro, The Art of Biography No. 5"
https://www.theparisreview.org/inter...-5-robert-caro

[bfisher]

"Not only Hitler and not only the failures thanked God on their knees when mobilization swept Europe in 1914. They did not even have to reproach themselves with having been an easy prey for chauvinist propaganda or lying explanations about the purely defensive character of the war. The elite went to war with an exultant hope that everything they knew, the whole culture and texture of life, might go down in its 'storms of steel'"
- Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism: The Temporary Alliance Between the Mob and the Elite

[BenG]

And yet, the chief deficiency I see in the sceptical movement is in its polarization: Us v. Them - the sense that we have a monopoly on the truth; that those other people who believe in all these stupid doctrines are morons; that if you’re sensible, you’ll listen to us; and if not, you’re beyond redemption. This is unconstructive. It does not get the message across. It condemns the sceptics to permanent minority status; whereas, a compassionate approach that from the beginning acknowledges the human roots of pseudoscience and superstition might be much more widely accepted.
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science As a Candle in the Dark

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by BenG

And yet, the chief deficiency I see in the sceptical movement is in its polarization: Us v. Them - the sense that we have a monopoly on the truth; that those other people who believe in all these stupid doctrines are morons; that if you’re sensible, you’ll listen to us; and if not, you’re beyond redemption. This is unconstructive. It does not get the message across. It condemns the sceptics to permanent minority status; whereas, a compassionate approach that from the beginning acknowledges the human roots of pseudoscience and superstition might be much more widely accepted.
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science As a Candle in the Dark

Yes! And wonderful book!!

[kennyc]

"Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood."
- George Orwell

June 8, 1949: George Orwell's dystopian classic, Nineteen Eight-Four, was published 68 years ago today. The popularity of the book led to our adoption of the term "Big Brother" as shorthand for a surveillance state.

(Goodreads quote of the day)

[covingtoncat73]

“You could never convince a monkey to give you a banana by promising him limitless bananas after death in monkey heaven.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

[covingtoncat73]

“Most likely, both the gossip theory and the there-is-a-lion-near-the-river theory are valid. Yet the truly unique feature of our language is not its ability to transmit information about men and lions. Rather, it’s the ability to transmit information about things that do not exist at all. As far as we know, only Sapiens can talk about entire kinds of entities that they have never seen, touched or smelled. Legends, myths, gods and religions appeared for the first time with the Cognitive Revolution. Many animals and human species could previously say, ‘Careful! A lion!’ Thanks to the Cognitive Revolution, Homo sapiens acquired the ability to say, ‘The lion is the guardian spirit of our tribe.’ This ability to speak about fictions is the most unique feature of Sapiens language.”

― Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

[KenMagee]

Originally Posted by covingtoncat73

“You could never convince a monkey to give you a banana by promising him limitless bananas after death in monkey heaven.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Excellent observation.

[Deskisamess]

“We all have our ups and downs,” she said. For a second he thought she meant her salads weren’t consistently successful. “I’ll be honest,” she told him, “there’ve been times when I have wondered if Bob and I would make it. There’s times I feel we’re just hanging in there, you know what I mean? Times I say, ‘Hi, honey, how was your day?’ but inside I’m feeling like a Gold Star mother.”

Macon turned the stem of his glass and tried to think what step he’d missed in her logic.

“Like someone who’s suffered a loss in a war,” she said, “and then forever afterward she has to go on supporting the war; she has to support it louder than anyone else, because otherwise she’d be admitting the loss was for no purpose.”



Excerpt From: Anne, Tyler. “Accidental Tourist.” Random House Publishing Group, 1985-12-18T05:00:00+00:00. iBooks.
This material may be protected by copyright.

[kennyc]

Love Anne Tyler!

[bfisher]

Originally Posted by covingtoncat73

“You could never convince a monkey to give you a banana by promising him limitless bananas after death in monkey heaven.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Absolutely! We are regressed apes.

[BenG]

“...A thing that is worth doing at all is worth doing badly... le mieux est l'ennemi du bien.”
― Beverley Nichols, Merry Hall

Quoting Voltaire:

“Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien. (The perfect is the enemy of the good.)”
― Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary

[BenG]

“By the way, the best place to find names for fictional characters, if you are ever foolish enough to write a novel, is in a Bradshaw or an ABC. All the nicest people always sound like railway stations.”
― Beverley Nichols, Merry Hall

[BetterRed]

"Civilization, in fact, grows more and more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary."

In Defense of Women (1918) - H.L. Menken