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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| 1641129 | Girl, interrupted. | Susanna Kaysen | ||
| 1da25bb | Particular patterns of thought get attached to particular movements or activities, and before you know it, it's impossible to approach that movement or activity without dislodging an avalanche of prethought thoughts. | Susanna Kaysen | ||
| f4c98ad | Can I try the dryler?" "No. No." Eyvinder grabbed it and held it to his breast. "Jonathan, I must make a confession." He grinned. "This is really a stone I painted to resemble a dryler. It's very good, no? I have done a beautiful job making it into a dryler. I wanted to give you a full Faroese meal in all its typicality, Anna and I both wanted this. But Anna cannot make dryler. Nobody can make them anymore. We've forgotten how, because they.. | Susanna Kaysen | ||
| 569d6ed | claque, aka canned laughter It's becoming increasingly clear that there's nothing new under the sun (a heavenly body, by the way, that some Indian ascetics stare at till they go blind). I knew that some things had a history--the Constitution, rhythm and blues, Canada--but it's the odd little things that surprise me with their storied past. This first struck me when I was reading about anesthetics and I learned that, in the early 1840s, it b.. | A.J. Jacobs | ||
| 4a416b4 | On the bright side, my slightly lower IQ means that I probably have worse recall. Maybe I'll soon forget that I have a depressed IQ. | A.J. Jacobs | ||
| 62fa257 | Studies show that the more you pay attention to your body's statistics, the greater the chance you'll adopt a healthy lifestyle. This idea underpins the Quantified Self movement, in which adherents track everything from caloric output to selenium levels. The mere act of weighing yourself daily makes it more likely you'll shed pounds, according to a University of Minnesota study. Keeping a food journal makes you eat fewer fatty foods, accord.. | A.J. Jacobs | ||
| db05e05 | First impressions are like South American dictators: overly powerful and unreliable. | A.J. Jacobs | ||
| 33373e5 | If ever I was going to listen to a string of swearwords sitting next to a ninety-four-year-old, I'm glad that ninety-four-year-old was my grandfather. Not that he swears a lot. It's just that he can take it. And, he is currently laughing so hard that his eyes are watery. | A.J. Jacobs | ||
| eded0f6 | I'm not a big scatology fan, unlike my sons, who can amuse themselves for an entire afternoon by repeating the phrase 'crocodile fart.' So I'll spare you from an overabundance of detail in this chapter. This chapter will be somewhat soft focus, like the TV camera in a Barbra Streisand interview. | A.J. Jacobs | ||
| 6dccd7a | How do you gag the voice in your head that says, 'You don't have to go to the gym today. There's always tomorrow. C'mon, my friend, it's just one plate of curly fries. Yes, just for you!' (My inner voice reminds me of a particularly aggressive rug salesman at a Turkish bazaar.) | A.J. Jacobs | ||
| c7ec5be | year hasn't been observed since the time of the Temple (The Second Jewish Book of Why, p. 262). The Sabbath year is still observed in some form, but only in Israel (ibid., p. 320). DAY 44 I first learned about the "domino" phrase in the book Serving the Word: Literalism in America from the Pulpit to the Bench, a very interesting look at fundamentalism. The history of literalism is actually" -- | A.J. Jacobs | ||
| 37b7234 | Greenberg tells me, "Never blame a text from the Bible for your behavior. It's irresponsible. Anybody who says X, Y, and Z is in the Bible--it's as if one says, 'I have no role in evaluating this.'" The" | A.J. Jacobs | ||
| f1c69e8 | I love the way he talks. By the end, perhaps I'll be able to speak in majestic food metaphors like Reverend Richards. | A.J. Jacobs | ||
| 5123634 | Mrs. Bush answers: "I think you ought to treat your spouse like you treat your friends. You clean your house for your friends, you make sure they're taken care of. A spouse often comes second. So treat your spouse like the friends. Don't just go halfway. If each spouse goes seventy-five percent of the way, it's a perfect match." | A.J. Jacobs | ||
| 92d108c | For most of my life, I've been working under the paradigm that my behavior should, ideally, have a logical basis. But if you live biblically, this is not true. I have to adjust my brain to this. You | A.J. Jacobs | ||
| 038974d | I thought that religion, for all the good it does, seemed too risky for our modern world. | A.J. Jacobs | ||
| c67d51d | I thought that religion, for all the good it does, seemed too risky for our modern world. The potential for abuse too high. | A.J. Jacobs | ||
| 8b6087c | The Bible may have not been dictated by God, it may have had a messy and complicated birth, one filled with political agendas and outdated ideas--but that doesn't mean the Bible can't be beautiful and sacred. | A.J. Jacobs | ||
| 50027e0 | I've even come to a conclusion that would get me blackballed from ever setting foot in liberal education circles again. That is this: colonialism wasn't 100 percent evil. More like 96 percent evil. Sometimes the colonizing culture actually made moral improvements in the native culture. I came to this conclusion while reading about the abolition of the Indian custom of widow burning. In pre-British India, a man's widow was burned alongside h.. | A.J. Jacobs | ||
| 9825f61 | Reading Encyclopaedia Britannica is like channel surfing on a very highbrow cable system. | curiosity | A.J. Jacobs | |
| 6e617d9 | My growing collection of facts keeps overlapping with my life. | openness revelation | A.J. Jacobs | |
| 0172fbb | Cigarettes' cost far outweigh any resulting trimness, just as asphyxiation outweighs the benefits of stretching out the spine when you hang yourself from a shower curtain rod. | A.J. Jacobs | ||
| 637369e | The dehydrator blows warm air on your food for hours, sometimes days. It reminds me of the temperature and intensity of dog's breath. So imagine a German shepherd exhaling on your fruit for a weekend. | A.J. Jacobs | ||
| 4ae6bde | Step back for a minute. Pretend you're from Mars. From a coldly rational point of view, pedestrian helmets aren't a crazy idea. | A.J. Jacobs | ||
| 7dfc5b3 | Journalism is an enemy of rationality. What makes news? The unusual and the spectacular, which by their nature distort reality and pervert our decisions. You read headlines like 15 KILLED IN PLANE CRASH IN WYOMING. You don't read headlines like ANOTHER 2,000 DIED OF HEART DISEASE YESTERDAY. This leads to the Availability Fallacy. Our lazy mind gloms on to the most vivid, emotional examples. When we think of danger, we think of hideous plane.. | A.J. Jacobs | ||
| b521d60 | hand and wrist aches are more common than ever...Wikipedia lists...my favorite, Raver's Thumb, which you can get from repeatedly waving a glow stick in the air (see, kids, ecstasy really is bad for you). | A.J. Jacobs | ||
| 8dc50ae | Like God and Duane Reade drugstores, toxins are everywhere. | A.J. Jacobs | ||
| cd184b3 | Tyson emails back: "I'm going to tell you the same thing that I told Henry Louis Gates" (Gates had asked Tyson to appear on his show Finding Your Roots): My philosophy of root-finding may be unorthodox. I just don't care. And that's not a passive, but active absence of caring. In the tree of life, any two people in the world share a common ancestor--depending only on how far back you look. So the line we draw to establish family and heritag.. | A.J. Jacobs | ||
| 6eea79c | It's joyous," he says. "If I save someone from breaking a commandment, it gives me a little high." He pumps his fist. "I never took drugs, but I imagine this is what it feels like." | A.J. Jacobs | ||
| 7733cdd | I found myself speaking more slowly (in an attempt to obey the Bible in speech), as if I was speaking French instead of English. | contemplation discipleship | A.J. Jacobs | |
| ba830de | Remember, sometimes you have to look beyond the weirdness. It's like the temple in ancient Jerusalem. If you went there, you'd see oxen being slaughtered and all sorts of things. But look beyond the weirdness, to what it means. | religion | A.J. Jacobs | |
| 9cd441d | As her head rests on her pillow, she'll go through the alphabet from A to Z and try to think of something to be grateful for that starts with each letter--A for her husband Andrew's blueberry pancakes; B for bocce, her favorite game in the summer; etc. | A.J. Jacobs | ||
| f7ec026 | You watch the Appalachian snake handlers on the Discovery Channel, and they look as weird as the guy on Coney Island who hammers six-inch nails into his nostrils, or Nick Nolte after a couple of vodka tonics. | A.J. Jacobs | ||
| 3d5565e | Maybe taming my tongue will be good for me in the end. But it's pretty hard when you've got a world filled with idiots from Drunkopolis. | evil-tongue gossip humor month-3 | A.J. Jacobs | |
| 8995615 | Pain is annoying and unnecessary, like getting an e-mail in all caps. It's like a six-year-old who alerts you every fifteen seconds that he wants Hungry Hungry Hippos for his birthday. Yes, I understand. Message received. | A.J. Jacobs | ||
| 91da666 | No effort could convince her that women could engage in such activities without loosing their feminity. Games seemed especially unfit for women. ..She was often torn between her belief that Americans were above European style dissipation, and her fear it was only a matter of time before they would follow in Europe path....Both of them hostile to royalty and privileges of rank, flaunted their Americaness and refused to curry favor with peopl.. | Lynne Withey | ||
| eff3010 | In [ , Mark Twain] proves to his own grim satisfaction, and to mine as well, that Satan and not God created the planet earth and "the damned human race." If you doubt that, read your morning paper. Never mind what paper. Never mind what date." | human-race newspapers | Kurt Vonnegut Jr. | |
| 42d5a1b | If onThe serious way Mark talked about the rule reminded Charlay what a marvelous age ten was. And Charley thought it was a pity that everybody couldn't stay ten for the rest of their lives. I everybody were ten, Charley thought, meybe rules and common decency and horse sense would have a Chinaman's chance. | Kurt Vonnegut | ||
| 8eaae35 | Those imaginary lines are as unreal to me as elves and pixies. I can't believe that they mark the end or the beginning of anything of real concern to a human soul. Virtues and vices, pleasures and pains cross boundaries at will. | Kurt Vonnegut | ||
| 209bf82 | You hate America, don't you?" she said. "That would be as silly as loving it," I said. "It's impossible for me to get emotional about it, because real estate doesn't interest me. It's no doubt a great flaw in my personality, but I can't think in terms of boundaries. Those imaginary lines are as unreal to me as elves and pixies. I can't believe that they mark the end or the beginning of anything of real concern to a human soul. Virtues and v.. | Kurt Vonnegut | ||
| a7393cf | And he speaks best that hath the skill when for to hold his peace. --Thomas, Lord Vaux | David Johnson | ||
| d975f9c | Question: What is it, to walk with God? Answer: Walking with God imports five things: 1. Walking as under God's eye. Noah reverenced God. A godly man sets himself as in God's presence, knowing that his judge is looking on: "I have set the Lord always before me" (Psalm 16:8). David's eyes were here. 2. The familiarity and intimacy which the soul has with God. Friends walk together and console themselves with one another. The godly make known.. | Thomas Watson | ||
| 7f3d488 | Heart agitated with remains of former passion is most susceptible to a new one...How unpardonable would it have been in you to have been a blockhead. ...Abigail knew no amount of largess could repay her sisters for their attention to her children. | Lynne Withey | ||
| 4542ba1 | She thought only men of property and talent should hold positions in government and once elected they should be allowed to rule with a minimum of popular interference. ..They cast off their old habits of frugality and tried to rise above social position as well - a double sin. | Lynne Withey |