Quotable

Yet, at the same time, I have to be able to hear and to listen to voices that challenge my understanding of received wisdom. I feel I must continually work to be aware of the assumptions and defaults that shape and distort and illuminate my ways of thinking.

--Kate Elliott

Quotable

For Leduc, literature, like life, was a place where some people damage us and some people save our lives—and then it is lunchtime.

 

Seen here.

Quotable

There’s a profound insecurity at the heart of any agenda that presumes that if kids aren’t spoon fed a black and white fairy tale of our national greatness, they’ll have no pride or loyalty. Arrogance isn’t patriotism, and education isn’t indoctrination. And anyone who doesn’t comprehend that difference doesn’t just need a history lesson, he needs a dictionary.

 By Oklahoma’s demented fight against AP US history.

 

 h/t

Quotable

Everyday is for the thief, but one day is for the owner.

English translation of Yoruba proverb included at the beginning of Every Day is for the Thief by Teju Cole

Quotable

Because we come to the world fresh we foolishly suppose that with our new lives new possibilities are born. It isn't true. The short range of possibilities are already worked out. We can change nothing, we can expect nothing. However long it takes the world will teach us our places, by preaching itself against ourselves...

After Z-hour by Elizabeth Knox

Quotable

'You're not upset, are you, Orr?' Brooke says, pouring wine into my glass.
'Merely sober. The symptoms are similar.'

The Bridge by Iain Banks

Quotable

Merle doesn't really want to depress them. It's a balance between unrealistic expectations and utter hopelessness.

The Writing Class by Stephanie Johnson

More Quotable

It is important for scientists to be aware of what our discoveries mean, socially and politically. It's a noble goal that science should be apolitical, acultural, and asocial, but it can't be, because it's done by people who are all those things.

-- Dr. Mae Jemison

Quotable

"You're just doing this to get laid." Oh, son. You know what I do to get laid? I treat women as humans while being super smart and attractive. This is a trick that works really well, so I've kept doing it solely for my wife's benefit.

Seen here. 
(And I highly recommend the post linked in the first paragraph.)

Quotable

...because some things you do and don't know that you do them.
Some other things you do out of mindless habit.
But some things, even those that are most like old habits, you do knowing that you do them. Courtesy that declares itself to be specific. Anger that is specific and directed. You do these things deliberately. You watch yourself do them and you make yourself do them. They are the parts of the character you build for yourself. They are parts of that character's discipline, its power, its leadership and authority.

Chinese Opera by Ian Wedde

Quotable

...witchcraft requires no potions, familiar spirits or magic wands. Language upon a silvered tongue affords enchantment enough.

The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie

A Thought

Good friends are never lost to each other, only waiting for the next opportunity to share experiences.

Quotable

Quotable

Remember, people will judge you by your actions, not your intentions. You may have a heart of gold, but so does a hard-boiled egg.

The Hakawati by Rabih Alameddine

Title: The Hakawati

Author: Rabih Alameddine

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf (2008)

This is one of those books that, when I am finished, I hardly know how to describe it or what I thought of it. The short, short summary would be: Osama al-Kharrat returns to Beirut to be with his family and severely-ill father. During this time he remembers many stories that were told to him and many stories about his family, especially his grandfather who was a hakawati - a professional storyteller. This book is full of stories within stories within stories; at times super engaging and, at times, a bit boring. I'm not sorry I read it but I can only think of one person I know for sure would like it. Many others would probably like it but I'm only guessing at that point.


The publisher describes the book: In 2003, Osama al-Kharrat returns to Beirut after many years in America to stand vigil at his father's deathbed. As the family gathers, stories begin to unfold: Osama's grandfather was a hakawati, or storyteller, and his bewitching tales are interwoven with classic stories of the Middle East. Here are Abraham and Isaac; Ishmael, father of the Arab tribes; the beautiful Fatima; Baybars, the slave prince who vanquished the Crusaders; and a host of mischievous imps. Through Osama, we also enter the world of the contemporary Lebanese men and women whose stories tell a larger, heartbreaking tale of seemingly endless war, conflicted identity, and survival. With The Hakawati, Rabih Alameddine has given us an Arabian Nights for this century.

My copy of Arabian Nights remains unread on my shelf so I can't attest to that but it certainly can be bewitching. But, as I said, it can also be boring. I would imagine that a book filled with so many stories will rarely fully satisfy one person. I do think the book has the ability to appeal to a wide audience... I just can't quite figure who that audience is specifically. So, I liked it for the most part and I think there is a lot of beauty and interesting bits to be found within the pages. Alameddine includes quotes between the sections of the book and I'm going to share a few of my favorites here (in lieu of an actual review apparently).

...stories do not belong only to those who were present or to those who invent them, once a story has been told, it's anyone's, it becomes common currency, it gets twisted and distorted, no story is told the same way twice or in quite the same words, not even if the same person tells the story twice, not even if there is only ever one storyteller...  --Javier Marias

Man is eminently a storyteller. His search for a purpose, a cause, an ideal, a mission and the like is largely a search for a plot and a pattern in the development of his life story--a story that is basically without meaning or pattern.   --Eric Hoffer

Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life.   --Fernando Pessoa

Bumper Sticker Humor

"At least the war on the environment is going well."

Seen On a LiveJournal Icon

English: a language that lurks in dark alleys, beats up other languages and rifles through their pockets for spare vocabulary.

Quotable

Even where the affections are not strongly moved by any superior excellence, the companions of our childhood always possess a certain power over our minds, which hardly any later friend can obtain. They know our infantine dispositions, which, however they may be afterwards modified, are never eradicated; and they judge of our actions with more certain conclusions as to the integrity of our motives.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

The Ones We Love

The words of William Sloane Coffin, whose son Alex died at age 24 in a car crash.

Tired of hearing well-meaning friends say, “It is the will of God,” he responded with this: “My own consolation lies in knowing that it was not the will of God that Alex die. That when the waves closed over the sinking car, God’s heart was the first to break."


I posted this quote about a year ago. It didn't occur to me then to wonder: how do people go on when even god's heart is breaking.


Peace be with you, and with my family.

Quotable

"The freethinking of one age is the common sense of the next."

                                                     -- Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)