“He lived at a little distance from his body, regarding his own acts with doubtful side-glances. He had an odd autobiographical habit which led him to compose in his mind from time to time a short sentence about himself containing a subject in the third person and a verb in the past tense.”
—
James Joyce, Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century (1882-1941),
Dubliners
“Eternity is very long, especially towards the end.”
“There is no reason why good cannot triumph as often as evil. The triumph of anything is a matter of organization. If there are such things as angels, I hope that they are organized along the lines of the Mafia.”
“If you ever start taking things too seriously, just remember that we are talking monkeys on an organic spaceship flying through the universe.”
“All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients.”
—
Ralph Waldo Emerson, American lecturer, essayist and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century (1803-1882)
“Our brains have just one scale, and we resize our experiences to fit.”
— Mouse-over text at
xkcd, 22 June 2011
“You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat.”
“There was a point to this story, but it has temporarily escaped the chronicler’s mind.”
“Isn’t there something in living dangerously?’
There’s a great deal in it,’ the Controller replied. ‘Men and women must have their adrenals stimulated from time to time.’
What?’ questioned the Savage, uncomprehending.
It’s one of the conditions of perfect health. That’s why we’ve made the V.P.S. treatments compulsory.’
V.P.S.?’
Violent Passion Surrogate. Regularly once a month. We flood the whole system with adrenin. It’s the complete physiological equivalent of fear and rage. All the tonic effects of murdering Desdemona and being murdered by Othello, without any of the inconvenience.’
But I like the inconveniences.’
We don’t,’ said the Controller. ‘We prefer to do things comfortably.’
But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.’
In fact,’ said Mustapha Mond, ‘you’re claiming the right to be unhappy. Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer, the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen tomorrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind.’
There was a long silence.
I claim them all,’ said the Savage at last.
Mustapha Mond shrugged his shoulders. ‘You’re welcome,’ he said.”
“You must believe in free will; there is no other choice.”
“How does she know it’s the right room?’ wondered Descant.
Oh, I don’t know; maybe it’s the magical red glow coming from the doorway, or perhaps it’s the deafening howl of the temporal winds.’ said Mervall.
Descant nodded.’You could be right, brother. And don’t think I don’t know sarcasm when I hear it.”
“Everything was unknown and unnamed. No language, no self-awareness. Even the concept of a concept was unknown.”
