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2012-01-26T10:16:00.002Z

"Proverbs for Paranoids 2: The innocence of the creatures is in inverse proportion to the immorality of the Master."

from 'Gravity's Rainbow' by Thomas Pynchon

2011-11-04T19:35:00.000Z

2011-11-04T19:02:00.003Z

“Work was like a stick. It had two ends. When you worked for the knowing you gave them quality; when you worked for a fool you simply gave him eyewash.”

from "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

2011-10-21T03:44:00.002+01:00

"Put your hands in under its underneath and start feeling promiscuously the way you can ascertain factually if there is anything there in addition to its own nothing."

from "The Third Policeman" by Flann O' Brien

2010-06-11T13:49:00.001+01:00

2009-08-18T21:56:00.001+01:00

2009-08-18T21:53:00.002+01:00

"Marriage is something we make from available materials. In this sense it's improvised, it's almost offhand. Maybe this is why we know so little about it. It's too inspired and quiksilver a thing to be clearly understood. Two people make a blur."

from 'The Names' by Don Delillo

2009-08-03T23:12:00.002+01:00

2009-08-03T23:06:00.002+01:00

"There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own."

from 'Moby Dick' by Herman Melville

2009-04-25T12:37:00.000+01:00

2009-04-25T12:35:00.005+01:00

"Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff."

Frank Zappa.

2009-04-22T08:50:00.000+01:00

2009-04-22T08:46:00.004+01:00

"We might change our desires, hopes, ideals, into intentions and expectations, things we actually set out to achieve in their fullness, rather than see them as distant goals we will never achieve, yet still have to work towards, or as pleasant dreams that are, in reality, simply not on."

from 'The Importance of Disappointment' by Ian Craib.

2009-04-21T16:03:00.001+01:00

2009-04-21T16:00:00.006+01:00

"There's a huge body of work, yet to be written, on the subject of brightness. "Brightness falls from the air." This is the only thing they've written so far, of all the things that could be written, on a subject so vast and dazzling."

from 'The Day Room' by Don Delillo.

2009-04-19T10:59:00.011+01:00

"Nobody realises that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal"

Albert Camus.

2009-04-19T02:14:00.000+01:00

2009-04-19T02:11:00.005+01:00

"Fables only accelerate the process. They establish death on earth for the sake of eternity in heaven. In so doing, they spoil the only gift we possess: the living matter of a potential existence killed in the egg just because its life is finite! Fleeing life in order not to have to die is not a good bargain. It pays death twice when once is enough."

from 'The Atheist Manifesto' by Michel Onfray.

2009-04-18T14:14:00.001+01:00

2009-04-18T13:58:00.006+01:00

"Any departure from critical thinking is dangerous... The image of the rationalist is the image of a cold person who has no aesthetic appreciation, no imagination, no awe of the marvels of life and is clever enough to rationalize immorality but he is precisely the person best equipped in these areas where he is judged to be remiss. Intuition and imagination are vital in the formation of hypotheses. By devising the requirements and examining the subjectivity of his test controls, the sceptic is exercising tremendous creativity and considering the subject more deeply than the hasty believer. This, then, shows a far greater assumption of moral responsibility regarding the consequences of the claim being proven true or false. The more stringent the requirements for validation, the more one may trust his foundation for subsequent advances and may confidently widen his horizons."

from 'Dark Side of the Moonies' by Erica Heftmann.

2009-04-18T00:23:00.001+01:00

2009-04-17T15:40:00.002+01:00

"Because once you've begun, there is no reason why you should stop. The line between the reality that is photographed because it seems beautiful to us and the reality that seems beautiful because it has been photographed is very narrow... The minute you start saying something, 'Ah, how beautiful! We must photograph it!' you are already close to the view of the person who thinks that everything that is not photographed is lost, as if it had never existed, and therefore, in order really to live, you must photograph as much as you can, and to photograph as much as you can you must either live in the most photographable way possible, or else photograph every moment of your life. The first course leads to stupidity; the second to madness."

from 'The Adventure of a Photographer' by Italo Calvino.

2009-03-21T23:04:00.001Z