Disintegration – I’m taking it in stride
Bret Easton Ellis
Literary Zen XIII
Tag: quotes
Literary Zen XII
I don’t know why people expect art to make sense. They accept the fact that life doesn’t make sense.
#meditate
Literary Zen XI
There is some wisdom in taking a gloomy view, in looking upon the world as a kind of Hell, and in confining one’s efforts to securing a little room that shall not be exposed to the fire.
*Perhaps a better caption would be, Willem Defoe as Arthur Schopenhauer, which is why I shan’t give up my day job.
Oh yeah, my books will be free from 00:01 (PDST) tonight until 23:59 PDST) Friday.
✌️
Not really sure about this one…
The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt. ~ Bertrand Russell
#happybirthdaybertrand
Straight On Through*
You just have to go on when it is worst and most helpless -there is only one thing to do with a novel [or anything important**] and that is go straight on through to the end of the damn thing.
Ernest Hemingway to F. Scott Fitzgerald in a 1929 letter from France, courtesy the New York Times archive
#alonetogetherwiththelostgeneration
*Even though it says Straight On Through and not Break On Through, I wonder how many first thought of the Doors…
**IMO
Two Learnings from My Recent Rememborizing Efforts: One cool; One cautionary
As I discussed in my last post, I’ve embarked on an effort to memorize stuff that interests me. I’m finding that the more I memorize stuff, the easier is to memorize and retain new stuff.
So as I just finished up memorizing the poem Invictus, I decided to go large and take on the grandest, and perhaps greatest, of all letters penned on behalf of these United States, The Declaration of Independence.
Yeah, maybe I am getting a little cocky/in over my head taking on such a significant body of work — significant as in packed with meaning, and, especially, significant as in packed with a lot of words. One-thousand, four-hundred and fifty-eight of them to be exact.
Continue reading Two Learnings from My Recent Rememborizing Efforts: One cool; One cautionaryLiterary Zen IX
I would sooner a writer were vulgar than mincing; for life is vulgar,
and it is life he seeks. ~ W. Somerset Maugham
#ofthejournals
Now that I’ve the Time
A couple days ago, I wrote a painfully long post called The Irrepressible Nature of Irony.
I mean, dude*, it is a massive monster of a missive.
I mean, wow.
Anyway, as a mea culpa, of sorts, for torturing you with such interminablely tedious twaddle, I left a footnote that reads:
Continue reading Now that I’ve the Time
Don’t be a Doormat
I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat. ― Rebecca West
#notetoself
#timesup
While Hacking at a Log
I wonder…
What is more important to most readers of literature…
Just the words as they are written?
Or the why the words were written – the author’s motivation?
Or the how the words were written – the author’s background?
When reading a thesis that may influence one’s medical or legal decisions, knowing that the author has the requisite knowledge and training to write with such influencing authority – the why and how of the words – probably should be important.
However, when it comes to literature – does it really matter what schools the author attended, or how well-read an author is?
Or would most readers regard a work of literature by a less-than educated or less-than well-read author similar to someone hacking in mad rage at a log with an ax and when she comes to her senses she discovers that she had, in her blind passion, formed a beautiful wooden sculpture*?
Would she have created art?
Should she then be considered an artist?
I wonder…
*This is far from an original thought of mine but unfortunately I cannot find the original quote to give proper credit. If you know, please comment.