August 14, 2008
“ In literature as in love, we are astonished at what is chosen by others.
André Maurois
February 4, 2008
“ If Jeremy Clarkson were here, he would doubtless be pointing out in that plonking way of his that these individuals are ‘sad’. Well, how come? Trainspotting doesn’t appeal to me one bit but then neither does Jeremy Clarkson. How come if you’re tragically obsessed with vile, globe-destroying, penis substitutes you get the nickname petrolhead but if you like trains, you’re an anorak? Petrolhead sounds way sexier, you have to admit. It says something about our world that if you are an enthusiast for anything, if you dare lose your ironic modern detachment and world-weariness, you become ‘sad’ or ‘a loser’.
Stuart Maconie, Pies and Prejudice
“ There still remain four irreducible objections to religious faith: that it wholly misrepresents the origins of man and the cosmos, that because of this original error it manages to combine the maximum of servility with the maximum of solipsism, that is both the result and the cause of dangerous sexual repression, and that it is ultimately grounded on wish-thinking.
Christopher Hitchens, Why god is not Great
December 27, 2007
“ To begin with, it’s true, she read with trepidation and some unease. The sheer endlessness of books outfaced her and she had no idea how to go on; there was no system to her reading, with one book leading to another, and often she had two or three on the go at the same time. The next stage had been when she started to make notes, after which she had always read with a pencil in hand, not summarising what she read but simply transcribing passages that struck her. It was only after a year or so of reading and making notes that she tentatively ventured on the occasional thought of her own. ‘I think of literature’, she wrote, ‘as a vast country to the far borders of which I am journeying but cannot possibly reach. And I have started too late. I will never catch up.’ Then (an unrelated thought): ‘Etiquette may be bad but embarrassment is worse.’
Alan Bennett, The Uncommon Reader
“ Then, with sudden desolation, I knew that there were no perhapses; that the destiny of the human race was shaped by neither politicians nor dictators, but by its own inadequacy, superstition, avarice, envy, cruelty, and silliness, and that it had no right whatever to demand and expect peace on earth until it had proved itself to be deserving of it.
Noël Coward, Future Indefinite
August 20, 2007
“ It is not inertia alone that is responsible for human relationships repeating themselves from case to case, indescribably monotonous and unrenewed: it is shyness before any sort of new, unforeseeable experience with which one does not think oneself able to cope. But only someone who is ready for everything, who excludes nothing, not even the most enigmatical, will live the relation to another as something alive.

Rainer Marie Rilke, Fear of the Inexplicable

[yes, it’s the quote in the movie I just mentioned]

“

We don’t have chemistry. Or banter. Or common interests. You’re a yoga instructor. You get colonics. You don’t appreciate the chaos and absurdity of life on this planet and in this city. You don’t understand irony, or ethnicity, or eccentricity, or poetry, or the simple joy of being a regular at the diner on your block — I love that!

You don’t drink coffee or alcohol. You don’t over-eat. You don’t cry when you’re alone. You don’t understand sarcasm. You plod through life in a neat, colourless, caffeine-free, dairy-free, conflict-free, banal self-possessed way. I’m bold, and angry, and tortured, and tremendous, and I notice when someone has changed their hair part, or when someone is wearing two very distinctly different shades of black, or when someone changes the natural timbre of their voice on the phone.

I don’t give out empty praise… I’m not complacent or well-adjusted. I can’t spend fifty minutes breathing and stretching and getting in touch with myself; I can’t spend three minutes finishing an article! I check my phone machine nine times every day and I can’t sleep at night because I feel that there is so much to do and fix and change in the world. And I wonder every day if I’m making a difference, and if I will ever express the greatness within me, or if I will remain forever-paralysed by the muddled madness inside my head. I’ve wept on every birthday I’ve ever had because life is huge and fleeting. And I hate certain people in certain shoes. And I feel that life is terribly unfair, and sometimes beautiful, and wonderful, and extraordinary, but also numbing, and horrifying, and insurmountable. And I hate myself a lot of the time, but a lot of the rest of the time, I adore myself, and I adore my life in this city, and in this world that we live in — this huge and wondrous, bewildering, brilliant, horrible world.

Jessica Stein, Kissing Jessica Stein (deleted scene)

stolen from Jenn, because she’s the one who made me want to rent the DVD

August 13, 2007

Remus remembers

“I like to remember everything,” Remus says, very quietly, so as not to wake him. “As it was. Because moments by themselves aren’t enough; they’re just — they’re like photographs. They move a little, they wave, but they aren’t everything. You can look back on a moment and say ‘In that moment I was happy’ or, more often than not, ‘In that moment I was uncomfortable’ or ‘In that moment I was sad’ or ‘In that moment we were all berks’ but you can look back on everything and you think, ‘That was good.’ Because when all the moments come together, when all the songs meet up with one another, you get something whole and complete and wonderful, people you loved and people you hated and a fondness for them you may not be able to recapture but everything you remember about them being somehow more than they really were, because that’s what remembering everything does. When I’m old, I think, I’ll look back on this and I won’t remember ‘That time Sirius thought, if he lit a fart on fire, he could make a star come out of his arse’ but I’ll probably remember the stars themselves. I won’t think ‘He nearly choked me when he grabbed onto my tie’ but I will think about the stupid doggy noises you’re making, even right now, even while you’re sleeping. It probably means remembering everything and not jumping from moment to moment like life is a game of leap-frog and should be taken experience to experience like lilypads is foolish, because I won’t remember you’re often a berk and James is often a berk and Peter can be impressively inane and I am such a wet-blanket with such a large nose it’s a miracle you don’t hate me. I’ll just remember that I talked for five minutes to a friend who was already sleeping and I was happy anyway.” Remus pauses, sighs, and thumbs the side of Sirius’ jaw, not noticing the path of his fingers. “You’re not going to remember any of this. Which is probably good since this, my friend, is definitely babble. I hate Gillyweed. It makes you think everything is profound when, in reality, you’re talking to yourself and no one else can translate the language that is You.”

“Huuuuroooooghnh,” Sirius agrees.

“And you can fall asleep anywhere,” Remus huffs. “That’s infuriating.”

A long, heavy-breathed, almost-silence.

“Goodnight,” Remus says, and closes his eyes. The stars twinkle out — or, at least, out of the moment.

— Jaida and Rave, over at Shoebox (part eleven)

August 8, 2007
“ The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous Roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.
Jack Kerouac, On the Road
July 28, 2007
“ A recent headline indicates a number of disturbing American trends: Father Kills Bear Charging At Son With Log.
First of all, who’s giving these animals logs? There’s nothing in the world a respectable bear needs with a log. If that bear has a log, he has it for one reason: to kill somebody.
[…] Oh, wait, hang on. I just went back and read the article. Turns out the father used the log, to kill the bear. Actually, that’s what’s wrong with our country: sloppy journalism. That headline, properly written, would have read: Father Uses Log To Kill Bear, Bear That Was, At That Time, Sans Log Or Any Kind Of Weapon, Charging Son Of Man.
Although that makes it sound as if the bear was charging Christ. Which - I mean, the article gives no indication that this was the case. In my opinion, a bear would not last a minute versus Christ. Especially if you gave Christ a log.
George Saunders, Weekend section of today’s Guardian