In the street below, a posh-looking drunk man is reading the card of a prostitute, Blue-Tacked up by a doorbell. He’s examining it with all the forensic care I presume he puts into reading a wine list. ‘What are you looking for?’ I ask him, in ...
While a common reaction to seeing a thing of beauty is to want to buy it, our real desire may be not so much to own what we find beautiful as to lay permanent claim to the inner qualities it embodies. Owning such an object may help us realise our amb...
Like prepositional phrases, certain structural arrangements in English are much more important than the small bones of grammar in its most technical sense. It really wouldn't matter much if we started dropping the s from our plurals. Lots of words ge...
Cal: “I’m not presuming. I know exactly what you think about me. You think I’m an anal-retentive Armrest Nazi . . . an arrogant Modelizer. You can’t stand the way I talk, any of the subjects I choose to talk about, the imperious manner I orde...
If I had been born in the 1700′s, presumably children had a bigger vocabulary than I had which means I wouldn’t have been able to recite fairy tales to kids because I’m not smart enough. You know…? I’d have to be like…..uh: In time passed...
I've tried reading the Bible. I never make it past all the talk about the firmament. The firmament is the thing, on Day 1 or 2, that divides the waters from the waters. Here you have the firmament. Next to the firmament, the waters. Stay with the wat...
Edmond: If you ever presume to interfere in my affairs again, I will, I promise you, finish the job I started the day we met! Do you understand? Jacopo: I understand you are mad. Edmond: Mad? My enemies are falling into my traps perfectly! Jacopo: Ma...
Maj. Baker: What's going on here, what are you doing to that man? Major Franklin: You know him? Maj. Baker: Of course, that's Nikolai, our laundry boy. Is he the reason I'm being disturbed? Look, Franklin, I've had a hard day! Major Franklin: Does hi...
...The discrepancy is that the ethical self should be found immanently in the despair, that the individual won himself by persisting in the despair. True, he has used something within the category of freedom, choosing himself, which seem to remove th...
Consciousness is not about information but about its opposite: order. Consciousness is not a complex phenomenon; it is what consciousness is _about_ that is complex. It is presumably this fact that is the reason many scientists over the decades have ...
Maximus was my model for self-control, fixity of purpose, and cheerfulness under ill-health or other misfortunes. His character was an admirable combination of dignity and charm, and all the duties of his station were performed quietly and without fu...
But what is the sense in forever speculating what might have happened had such and such a moment turned out differently? One could presumably drive oneself to distraction in this way. In any case, while it is all very well to talk of 'turning points'...
Dega: Well, it now seems quite possible that until we get to a decent jail with bribeable guards, I may stand in some need of... rather close physical protection. Papillon: That depends on how long you want to live. Dega: For a long time. Papillon: T...
I met this boy here who I knew as a kid and his mum left him with a pedophile for two weeks when he was eight years old and I'm presuming you know everything there is to know about Jonah's father, and that my father is dead, and my mother hasn't been...
As it turned out, almost every notion I had on my 13th birthday about my future turned out to be a total waste of my time. When I thought of myself as an adult, all I could imagine was someone thin, and smooth, and calm, to whom things... happened. S...
Marwood: Give me a Valium, I'm getting the FEAR! Danny: [very calmly] You have done something to your brain. You have made it high. If I lay 10 mls of diazepam on you, it will do something else to your brain. You will make it low. Why trust one drug ...
Quiz Kid Donnie Smith: Do you know who I am? Thurston Howell: You're a friend of the family, I presume. Quiz Kid Donnie Smith: What does that mean? Thurston Howell: Nothing special. Just a spoke in the wheel. Quiz Kid Donnie Smith: You talk in rhymes...
Mary Poppins: You *are* the father of Jane and Michael Banks, are you not? [pause] Mary Poppins: I said, you *are* the father of Jane and Michael Banks. Mr. Banks: Well, really - yes, of course. And you brought your references, I presume; may I see t...
James T. Kirk: Now, what is it with you, Spock? Hm? Your planet was just destroyed, your mother murdered, and you're not even upset! Spock: If you are presuming that these experiences in any way impede my ability to command this ship, you are mistake...
