Notable quotes, excerpts, and profound lines.

[rkomar]

"Never underestimate the public's ability to lose interest in something that involves reading."

Cathal Kelly in the Globe and Mail commenting on the difference in public outrage between watching video of ex-NBA owner Sterling being racist and reading hearsay accounts of current NBA-owner Sarver being racist.

[Angst]

Somehow I’ve lucked out and have an 8yo who thinks secretly reading under the covers past her bedtime is an act of rebellion, and it hasn’t yet occurred to her that her flashlights never seem to run out of batteries.

--Robert McNees, @mcnees, Twitter

[covingtoncat73]

Happy Birthday to Kurt Vonnegut!

“I have told my sons that they are not under any circumstances to take part in massacres, and that the news of massacres of enemies is not to fill them with satisfaction or glee. I have also told them not to work for companies which make massacre machinery, and to express contempt for people who think we need machinery like that.”

― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

[covingtoncat73]

"Potatoes were, for some reason, more prone to fits of random magic than most vegetables. It would take a remarkable magic to affect turnips or kale. No one bothered planting eggplants—they would run into the woods or fly away on leafy kites the instant your back was turned."
T. Kingfisher, The Seventh Bride

[issybird]

She didn’t know much about what heaven was like; but she imagined when you died and went to heaven, heaven must be like this―to be alone, without a man.

―Cornell Woolrich writing as William Irish, Deadline at Dawn

[covingtoncat73]

“The Buddha said that responding to email and Twitter is like sweeping the sands from the banks of the Ganges River.” “The Buddha said that?” “Well, maybe not. But the point remains the same. Some tasks are impossible, even if you are a Buddha. Even if you have eleven heads and a thousand arms.”
― Ruth Ozeki, The Book of Form and Emptiness: A Novel

[covingtoncat73]

"I think we’ll have a roast of squash, full of flavor, nothing posh I think we’ll have a soup of greens with warm and toasty bread A meal of oats to warm the heart, I think would make a lovely start And jugs of wine with berries spiced the prefect shade of red."

From Winterset Hollow by Jonathan Durham


Happy Thanksgiving!

[issybird]

[It] is the essential difference between religious and secular pilgrimage: the latter always has the potential to disappoint.

―Geoff Dyer, White Sands

[astrangerhere]

This book is awake.
This book is a wake.
For what is a record but a reckoning?

From Call Us What We Carry: Poems by Amanda Gorman

[poohbear_nc]

Faithfulness was not the same as remembrance; one could forget and be faithful and one could remember and be faithless.

Orient Express by Graham Greene

[issybird]

”People like frequent laughter,” answered Father Brown, “but I don’t think they like a permanent smile. Cheerfulness without humour is a very trying thing.”

―Gilbert Keith Chesterton, The Innocence of Father Brown

[covingtoncat73]

"There are many different variations on the 'stoned ape' hypothesis." From Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake

[Uncle Robin]

Quarter of the way through Steve Martin's Born Standing Up there are already so many wonderful demonstrations of his skill with words, but this one serves as a good example, for making me laugh out loud.

I held my first copy and solemnly turned the pages, reading each sentence so slowly that it’s a miracle I could remember what the verb was

and one more, insight with a smile

Despite a lack of natural ability, I did have the one element necessary to all early creativity: naïveté, that fabulous quality that keeps you from knowing just how unsuited you are for what you are about to do.

[covingtoncat73]

“What an age! Every one is dying, everything is dying, and the earth is dying also, eaten up by the sun and the wind. I don't know where I get the courage to keep on living in the midst of these ruins. Let us love each other to the end.”

George Sand to Gustave Flaubert June 1870

[spacepope]

"Is it because we’re having so much fun at home we’ve forgotten the world? Is it because we’re so rich and the rest of the world’s so poor and we just don’t care if they are? I’ve heard rumors; the world is starving, but we’re well fed. Is it true, the world works hard and we play? Is that why we’re hated so much? I’ve heard the rumors about hate, too, once in a long while, over the years. Do you know why? I don’t, that’s sure! Maybe the books can get us half out of the cave. They just might stop us from making the same damn insane mistakes! I don’t hear those idiot bastards in your parlor talking about it. God, Millie, don’t you see? An hour a day, two hours, with these books, and maybe...”

- Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451