Tuesday, August 25, 2009

The history of the world is the history of a ten-thousand-year war of brains between the rich and the poor. Each side is eternally trying to hoodwink the other side: and it has been this way since the start of time. The poor win a few battles...but of course the rich have won the war for ten thousand years.

Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

[E]veryone wants to be the center of the universe.

Colin Negrych as quoted by Nick Palmgarten

[A] mortal soul, the non-corporeal essence of ourselves lurking within our flesh...flourishing when we flourish, and dying when we die.

Salman Rushdie, "In the South"

Both in the May 18, 2009 New Yorker.

Sunday, August 02, 2009

From now on, you are you.


Mahmoud Darwish, From Now On You Are You

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Whatever destiny demands of us, we and only we can decide whether to endure with noble fortitude or not. We do not wish for evils, but we can endure them.

John C. Wright, The Golden Age

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

And I think it's gonna be a long long time
Till touch down brings me round again to find
I'm not the man they think I am at home
Oh no no no, I'm a rocket man

Rocket man burning out his fuse up here alone
And I think it's gonna be a long long time...

Elton John, Rocket Man

Monday, June 01, 2009

The great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance

Saturday, May 30, 2009

I do not want this world. I do not like this world. I do not need this world. I do not need to feel sympathetic for this world or its inhabitants. If only they did not need me...

A fictional agent of the UN Security Council in Singularity Sky by Charles Stross

Saturday, May 23, 2009

The God of Small Things....If he touched her, he couldn't talk to her, if he loved her he couldn't leave, if he spoke he couldn't listen, if he fought he couldn't win.

Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

No beast has essayed the boundless, infinitely inventive art of human hatred. No beast can match its range and power.

Arundhati Roy
, The God of Small Things

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

The future is already here. It's just not very evenly distributed.


William Gibson

Sunday, May 10, 2009

It's just another day in paradise
As you stumble to your bed
You'd give anything to silence
Those voices ringing in your head
You thought you could find happiness
Just over that green hill
You thought you would be satisfied
But you never will-
Learn to be still

We are like sheep without a shepherd
We don't know how to be alone
So we wander 'round this desert
And wind up following the wrong gods home
But the flock cries out for another
And they keep answering that bell
And one more starry-eyed messiah
Meets a violent farewell-
Learn to be still
Learn to be still

Now the flowers in your garden
They don't smell so sweet so sweet
Maybe you've forgotten
The heaven lying at your feet

There are so many contradictions
In all these messages we send
(We keep asking)
How do I get out of here?
Where do I fit in?
Though the world is torn and shaken
Even if your heart is breakin'
It's waiting for you to awaken
And someday you will-
Learn to be still
Learn to be still

You just keep on runnin'
Keep on runnin'

The Eagles, Learn to be Still

Thursday, April 16, 2009

You, who are on the road must have a code that you can live by.
And so become yourself because the past is just a good bye.

CSN&Y, Teach Your Children

Thursday, April 09, 2009

The latest findings highlight once again the extent to which obesity is a consequence of Homo sapiens carrying into an era of abundance, leisure and warmth the physiology that humans evolved in a world marked by barely enough food, constant physical activity and dangerous cold.

From a Washington Post article on brown fat.

Monday, March 09, 2009

In short, the key to the salvation of the West was the Persian defeat by the Greeks, which required a victory at Salamis, which in turn could not have occurred without the repeated efforts—all against opposition—of a single Athenian statesman. Had he wavered, had he been killed, or had he lacked the moral and intellectual force to press home his arguments, it is likely that Greece would have become a satrapy of Persia.

Victor Davis Hanson on Themistocles in “No Glory That Was Greece” in What If?, edited by Robert Cowley

Sunday, January 04, 2009

Theory is when you know everything but nothing works.

Practice is when everything works but nobody knows why.

Unknown

Sunday, November 30, 2008

A man so often only finishes a house by turning it into a tomb.

G.K.Chesterton, The Scandal of Father Brown.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Every thing is what it is, and not another thing.

Bishop Joseph Butler

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

When you are happy, it's surprising how much you can drink.


From a friend from North Mitrovica -- soon to get married -- over coffee at DV.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

There are times that we cannot seem to find our center. We have to find someplace to stand at the edges of ourselves. This seems the only place for us to exist and get through day-to-day. We cannot do this for so long but if we had a choice, we'd probably try to get closer in where it is more comfortable.

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Travel was pointless. It removed you from the place in which you had a meaning, and to which you gave meaning in return by dedicating your life to it, and spirited you away into fairylands where you were, and looked, frankly absurd.

Salman Rushdie, “The Shelter of the World,” The New Yorker of Feb. 25,2008