To conform is to submit and to win is to conform, to be beaten.
Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet
Having read even a few dozen books in common is a force more binding than blood.
Cormac McCarthy, The Passenger
Tergiversate (v) - To use evasions or ambiguities; equivocate. From the Latin tergum, the back + versāre, to turn.
Americans love being conned if you can do it in a style that is both grand and entertaining.
Ishmael Reed, Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down
Today I learned that Mumbai’s Dharavi slum has an estimated GDP of close to $1 billion.
He used to say to his son that life’s decisive truths exist secretly in abandoned books.
Andrey Platonov, Chevengur
We have to begin to laugh at everything, to the point of chaos if necessary, and create an environment in which the sanctimonious become worried, for a large part of their ills and ours come from their limitations.
Sergio Pitol, paraphrasing a conversation with his friend Carlos Monsiváis, in “The Art of Flight”
invidious (adj) - (of an action or situation) likely to arouse or incur resentment or anger in others; (of a comparison or distinction) unfairly discriminating, unjust.
Gado (n, Portuguese) - cattle or livestock, and recently, supporters of Brazilian right-wing dipshit politician Jair Bolsonaro.
Encountered in this article on measuring crowd size at demonstrations using a method based on automated livestock counting.
You dwell in ignorance as you embark upon new roads, and do not recognize marvels as you live them: stepping out past the familiar, beyond what man has cordoned off, you grown vain in the privilege of discovery, and think yourself the owner of unknown paths, and you tell yourself you can repeat this feat whenever you wish. And one day, you are foolish enough to retrace your steps, thinking that the exceptional can be exceptional again, but when you return, you find the landscape changed, the reference points erased, the informants' faces different…
Alejo Carpentier, “The Lost Steps”
In contrast to revenge, which is the natural, automatic reaction to transgression and which because of the irreversibility of the action process can be expected and even calculated, the act of forgiving can never be predicted; it is the only reaction that acts in an unexpected way and thus retains, though being a reaction, something of the original character of action.
Hannah Arendt
There is reason, after all, that some people wish to colonise the moon, and others dance before it as an ancient friend.
James Baldwin
It’s somebody with a very weird looking hammer imagining the existence of deeply implausible nails.
From Elon Musk wants to turn Tesla’s fleet into AWS for AI — would it work?
At first there was nothing…then nothing turned itself inside-out and became something.
Sun Ra
The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.
W. B. Yeats, “The Second Coming”, 1920
The fundamental cause of trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure, while the intelligent are full of doubt.
Bertrand Russell, “The Triumph of Stupidity”, 1933
The problem is that bad writers tend to have the self-confidence, while the good ones tend to have self-doubt.
Charles Bukowski, interview in Arete, 1989
(h/t to Quote Investigator)
The world is too vast to live in a single place, or three, or four.
Ko Un, via this video of Not Vital
ELO’s debut album was released in the United States in March 1972 as No Answer. The name originated after a US record company secretary called the UK label for the name of the album, but as she was unable to reach anyone, left a note in the file reading “No answer.” A similar mistake resulted in the release of the Byrds 1970 LP, Untitled.
solecism (n): 1. A nonstandard usage or grammatical construction; 2. A violation of etiquette; 3. An impropriety, mistake, or incongruity.
Latin soloecismus, from Greek soloikismos, from soloikizein, to speak incorrectly, from soloikos, speaking incorrectly, after Soloi (Soli), an Athenian colony in Cilicia where a dialect regarded as substandard was spoken.
When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness.
Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote
Our first impressions are not only our own: they are bathed in the light of our parents’ heyday.
Gregor von Rezzori, Abel and Cain
Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigour, and moral courage which it contained.
John Stuart Mill
A mind is like a parachute. It doesn’t work if it is not open.
Frank Zappa
Imbricate: (adj) having regularly arranged, overlapping edges, as roof tiles or fish scales.
Lahar (n) - An avalanche of volcanic water and mud down the slopes of a volcano.
Shitegeist (n) - The popular but worthless spirit or mood of the times.