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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| a463e00 | One of the major mistakes people make is that they think manners are only the expression of happy ideas. There's a whole range of behavior that can be expressed in a mannerly way. That's what civilization is all about--doing it in a mannerly and not an antagonistic way. One of the places we went wrong was the naturalistic Rousseauean movement of the Sixties in which people said, "Why can't you just say what's on your mind?" In civilization .. | Bret Easton Ellis | ||
| f29d5d2 | general competence is on the fucking decline. | Bret Easton Ellis | ||
| 6dce2b4 | The fundamental tension of the profession is the struggle between bold advocacy of the client's interests and the need to establish and hold to limits that prevent advocacy from leading to irrational and inequitable results; and thus the lawyer's job in practice is to be on one hand the impassioned representative of his client to the world, and on the other the wise representative to his client of the legal system, and the society, explaini.. | Scott Turow | ||
| c6af45b | I was willing to do it. was determined to do it. By the end of the day, that had become my reaction to all of the signs of hard things ahead - a new purposefulness, hardy resolve. Everything I'd encountered so far - the law, my classmates, the great piece of discovery - had left me in deep thrall and I was bent on making sure that continued. I would have the best of it, I decided, whatever the obstacles. | law law-school | Scott Turow | |
| cad64dd | Even then, when the hike was perfect, I would wonder, 'Now what?' And take a picture. Take another picture. Like a man with a photogenic girlfriend he didn't love. | Jonathan Franzen | ||
| c50b1b5 | Alfred believed that the real and the true were a minority that the world was bent on exterminating. | Jonathan Franzen | ||
| 3044081 | People nowadays seemed to resent the railroads for abandoning romantic steam power in favor of diesel. People didn't understand the first goddamned thing about running a railroad. A diesel locomotive was versatile, efficient, and low-maintenance. People thought the railroad owed them romantic favors, and then they belly ached if a train was slow. That was the way most people were--stupid. | Jonathan Franzen | ||
| fd2b540 | Every writer is first a member of a community of readers, and the deepest purpose of reading and writing fiction is to sustain a sense of connectedness, to resist existential loneliness; and so a novel deserves a reader's attention only as long as the author sustains the reader's trust. | Jonathan Franzen | ||
| e23df64 | Although he, like all people, secretely enjoyed the smell of his own farts, the smell of his shit was somethig else. It was so bad as to seem evil in a moral way. | Jonathan Franzen | ||
| 93f050a | The truth is that nothing between Patty and Richard was ever going to last, because they couldn't help being disappointments to each other, because neither was as lovable to the other as Walter was to both of them. Every time Patty lay by herself after sex, she sank down into sadness and loneliness, because Richard was always going to be Richard, whereas with Walter, there had always been the possibility, however faint, and however slow in .. | Jonathan Franzen | ||
| a818d83 | Success at sports is the province of the almost empty head. | Jonathan Franzen | ||
| 41585c6 | If multiculturalism succeeds in making us a nation of independently empowered tribes, each tribe will be deprived of the comfort of victimhood and be forced to confront human limitation for what it is: a fixture of life. | Jonathan Franzen | ||
| 2f73b82 | By now it was too late to call St. Jude. He chose an out-of-the-way patch of airport carpeting and lay it down to sleep. He didn't understand what had happened to him. He felt like a piece of paper that had once had coherent writing on it but had been through the wash. He felt roughened, bleached and worn out along the fold lines. He semi-dreamed of disembodied eyes and isolated mouths in ski masks. He'd lost track of what he wanted, and si.. | identity | Jonathan Franzen | |
| c1f6fa5 | Whether anybody was home meant everything to a house. It was more than a major fact: it was the only fact. The family was the house's soul. | Jonathan Franzen | ||
| 25e5e33 | Believe me,' [...] 'I would know about it. That's the difference between me and your girlfriend. I am the jealous type. I am the Spanish Inquisition when it comes to being fucked around on. No quarter will be given. | girlfriend jealousy | Jonathan Franzen | |
| 7807376 | She felt that nothing could kill her hope now, nothing. She was seventy-five and she was going to make some changes in her life. | Jonathan Franzen | ||
| a93ae8b | The basic contribution one can make to one's community is not to add to the general unconsciousness of the time. | Thomas Moore | ||
| 50fd612 | DOST thou not hear the silver bell, Through yonder lime-trees ringing? 'Tis my lady's light gazelle. To me her love thoughts bringing, -- | Thomas Moore | ||
| 6243c93 | One afternoon in the fall of 2015, while I was writing this book, I was driving in my car and listening to SiriusXM Radio. On the folk music station the Coffee House, a song came on with a verse that directly spoke to me--so much so that I pulled off the road as soon as I could and wrote down the lyrics and the singer's name. The song was called "The Eye," and it's written by the country-folk singer Brandi Carlile and her bandmate Tim Hanse.. | Thomas L. Friedman | ||
| f5ddfe0 | Besides, the story is ambivalent and mysterious in its ending. Is this Alkestis returning from down below? Why does she have a veil over her face? Could it be that when we forcefully bring back to life what has been lost through love what we get is only a shate of its former reality? Maybe we can never succeed fully in restoring the soul to life. Maybe she will always be veiled and at least partially shielded from the rigors of actual life... | death love submission | Thomas Moore | |
| 6bf7f39 | Maybe one function of love is to cure us of an anemic imagination, a life emptied of romantic attachment and abandoned to reason. | Thomas Moore | ||
| 1b5b556 | art intensifies the presence of the world. | Thomas Moore | ||
| 0d4db86 | All of us must do our best to live gracefully in the present moment. I now see depression as akin to being tied to a chair with restraints on my wrists. It took me a long time to realize that I only magnify my distress by struggling for freedom. My pain diminished when I gave up trying to escape completely from it. However, don't interpret my current approach to depression as utterly fatalistic. I do whatever I can to dull depression's pain.. | mental-illness | David A. Karp | |
| f99c08e | Once upon a time she had felt trapped inside her story with its familiar characters and predictable plot. Now she felt locked out of it. | silvie | Roderick Townley | |
| 2cd2c70 | What counts as social infrastructure? I define it capaciously. Public institutions such as libraries, schools, playgrounds, parks, athletic fields, and swimming pools are vital parts of the social infrastructure. So too are sidewalks, courtyards, community gardens, and other green spaces that invite people into the public realm. Community organizations, including churches and civic associations, act as social infrastructures when they have .. | social-relationships third-place | Eric Klinenberg | |
| b42f6ae | a new group, flexitarians, who eat meat if not too many people are watching. | David Sedaris | ||
| 5164ac3 | You have how many children in your family?" the teacher would ask. "I'm guessing you must be Catholic, am I right?" | David Sedaris | ||
| bafd06a | Sex," the driver said, "Has no one ever told you about it?" I took the New York Times from my carry-on bag and pretended to read, an act that apparently explained it all. "Ohhh," the driver said, "I understand. You do not like pussy. You like the dick. Is that it?" I brought the paper close to my face, and he stuck his arm through the little window and slapped the back of his seat. "David," he said, "David, listen to me when I am talking to.. | humor sex | David Sedaris | |
| 0d9f33c | I would clear the table and Hugh would do the dishes, neither of us speaking and both of us wondering if this just might be the one to do it. 'I hear you guys broke up over a plastic hand,' people would say, and my rage would renew itself. | David Sedaris | ||
| 558c8bd | With practice I will eventually realize my goal; in the meantime, come to Paris and you will find me, headphones plugged tight in my external audio meatus, walking the quays and whispering, 'Has anything else been inserted into your anus? Has anything else been inserted into your anus? | David Sedaris | ||
| fe95e30 | I am optimistic that things will fall into place, and one day I'll be sitting in New York City with correct bus fare in my pocket. | David Sedaris | ||
| 4871255 | Neither were we allowed to choose what we ate. I have a friend whose seven-year-old will only consider something if it's white. Had I tried that, my parents would have said, "You're on," and served me a bowl of paste, followed by joint compound, and, maybe if I was good, some semen." -- | David Sedaris | ||
| 790c907 | What looks good now is guaranteed to embarrass you twenty years down the line, which is, of course, the whole problem with fashion. | David Sedaris | ||
| 46a728e | If I'd been burned alive because of bad grades, my parents would have killed me, especially my father, who meant well but was just a little too gung ho for my taste. | David Sedaris | ||
| 692c8f0 | A person doesn't consciously choose what he focuses on. Those things choose you, and, once they do, nothing, it seems, can shake them. | David Sedaris | ||
| b9accba | The Romanians really do lead the world when it comes to cursing. "What have you got for me?" I asked a woman from Transylvania who was now living in Vienna. "Shove your hand up my ass and jerk off my shit," she offered. I was stunned. "Anyone else would say, 'Shove your hand up my ass,' and then run out of imagination," I told her. "You people, though, you just keep going. And that's what makes you the champions you are." , I thought, watc.. | David Sedaris | ||
| 05300c4 | there are only two kinds of flights: ones in which you die and ones in which you do not. | David Sedaris | ||
| 5bad871 | Bitch, I'm here to tell you that it's going to be all right. We'll get through this shit, motherfucker, just you wait. | David Sedaris | ||
| a1d14c7 | Me: Did you get your tree yet? Ken: I'm a Jew, I don't decorate Christmas trees. Me: So you're going to go with a wreath instead? Ken: I just told you, I'm a Jew. Me: Oh, I get it. You're looking for a cheap wreath. Ken: I'm not looking for a wreath at all. Leave me alone, will you. Me: You're probably just tense because you haven't finished your Christmas shopping. Ken: I don't Christmas shop. Me: What are you telling me? That you all of.. | David Sedaris | ||
| 11f51a0 | He took three shots a night-no more, no less. He switched from whisky to straight gin. The bum compensated for the scant volume. Three shots tweaked his hatreds. Four shots and up cut those hatreds all the way loose. Three shots said, You project danger. Four shots or more said, You're ugly and you limp. | James Ellroy | ||
| 34bdabe | America was never innocent. We popped our cherry on the boat over and looked back with no regrets. You can't ascribe our fall from grace to any single event or set of circumstances. You can't lose what you lacked at conception. | James Ellroy | ||
| 5ac08ed | They were heedless of the fact that they'd gain more converts if they just stopped talking. | James Ellroy | ||
| a314683 | By degrees during the afternoon he warmed and became alive, and only towards evening, on his good days, was he productive, active and, sometimes, aglow with joy. | Hermann Hesse | ||
| 9a86d09 | Everyone can reach his goals, if he is able to think, if he is able to wait, if he is able to fast. | Hermann Hesse |