Disaster is rarely as pervasive as it seems from recorded accounts. The fact of being on the record makes it appear continuous and ubiquitous whereas it is more likely to have been sporadic both in time and place. Besides, persistence of the normal i...
Whenever a state or an individual cited 'insufficient funds' as an excuse for neglecting this important thing or that, it was indicative of the extent to which reality had been distorted by the abstract lens of wealth. During periods of so-called eco...
About some books we feel that our reluctance to return to them is the true measure of our admiration. It is hard to suppose that many people go back, from a spontaneous desire, to reread : there is neither reason nor need to, no one forgets it. The u...
I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him g...
I craved a form of naive realism. I paid special attention, I craned my readerly neck whenever a London street I knew was mentioned, or a style of frock, a real public person, even a make of car. Then, I thought, I had a measure, I could guage the qu...
It is the case that, albeit to a lesser extent, all fictions make their readers live "the impossible", taking them out of themselves, breaking down barriers, and making them share, by identifying with the characters of the illusion, a life that is ri...
The mental health system is filled with survivors of prolonged, repeated childhood trauma. This is true even though most people who have been abused in childhood never come to psychiatric attention. To the extent that these people recover, they do so...
Life is like a Tick mark. it is stable for a time. then it takes a ditch not because we are meant to be upset but to go higher and be better, you need to lean back and jump. life is like a ANalog signal it have its highs and lows. i take it as 1st cy...
Bill: If you had to guess where she was headed next, what would be your best guess? Sofie Fatale: Guessing won't be necessary. She informed me. She said that I could keep my wicked life for two reasons... [flashback] The Bride: As I said before, I've...
What happened was that sometimes I was, from a young age, put in the theater to watch movies because they kept me quiet and they kept me entertained, and they got me out from under the feet of my parents. So from a very early age, I went to the movie...
[Hunt enters Lauda's garage and sees the extent of the burn injuries to his head] Niki Lauda: It's that bad, huh? James Hunt: [Shrugs] No. Niki Lauda: In hospital, I asked them straight, no bullshit, how bad my appearance would be. They said in time,...
