If little else, the brain is an educational toy. The problem with possessing such an engaging toy is that other people want to play with it, too. Sometime they'd rather play with yours than theirs. Or they object if you play with yours in a different...
Paul Buchheit: I'm suddenly reminded that, for a while, I asked people if they were playing Russian Roulette with a gun with a billion barrels (or some huge number, so in other words, some low probability that they would actually be killed), how much...
To many people I have no doubt that it appears merely silly. I once found it expressed in a rather amusing way in a Russian Book called , which means the lure of far horizons. The author is Galinischev Kutuzoff [Golenischev-Kutuzov], and he tells of ...
This western-front business couldn’t be done again, not for a long time. The young men think they could do it but they couldn’t. They could fight the first Marne again but not this. This took religion and years of plenty and tremendous sureties a...
In Warsaw, you also remember that you are in a Communist-controlled country, though by all accounts the control is now humane and lenient, judged by what it was and what it is in other satellite countries. Still you do hear the incompetent echo in th...
Lions should be strong but sweet beasts in a Disney cartoon. But they aren't, so when they act like lions you're angry at them for not being the fantasy animals you imagined. Russian bears don't put on top hats and ride unicycles. Or sleep in bed nex...
[Grant has just explained SPECTRE's plot for Bond] James Bond: That must have been a pretty sick collection of minds to dream up a plan like that. Donald 'Red' Grant: Wish you could see the headlines, "British agent murders beautiful Russian spy, the...
Natasha Romanoff: [on the phone] Where is Barton now? Agent Phil Coulson: We don't know. Natasha Romanoff: But he's alive? Agent Phil Coulson: We think so. I'll brief you on everything when you get back. But first, we need you to talk to the big guy....
[while interrogating the boys, Smecker is surprised that they are fluent in Russian] Paul Smecker: You speak any other languages? Murphy: Aye. Our mother insisted on it. Paul Smecker: French? Murphy: [in French] How do you think he figured all this o...
In my opinion it is not the writer's job to solve such problems as God, pessimism, etc; his job is merely to record who, under what conditions, said or thought what about God or pessimism. The artist is not meant to be a judge of his characters and w...
No one was ever born without that light or flame of life. Some event, some person stifles or drowns it altogether. I was always tempted to resuscitate such men by my own joyousness or luminosity. When I break glasses in a night club, as the Russians ...
Communication between people of different nationalities enriches human society and makes it more colourful.. Imagine our Russian intellectuals, the kind, merry, perceptive old women in our villages, our elderly workers, our young lads, our little gir...
I'm done with the pouting," he said. "Done with being moody—well, I mean, I'm always a little moody. That's what Adrian Ivashkov's all about. But I'm done with the excessive stuff. That didn't get me anywhere with Rose. It won't get me anywhere wit...
Sad to say, in a present-day world that seems to be governed by clashing self--interests and material forces, where we have learned that idealistic rhetoric usually cloaks nationalistic purposes or even far more diabolical schemes, it has become incr...
To have come on all this new world of writing, with time to read in a city like Paris where there was a way of living well and working, no matter how poor you were, was like having a great treasure given to you. You could take your treasure with you ...
The fact that you’re unsure probably means you need food that much more,” he said, which sounded like the weirdest logic I’d ever heard. “At least in my experience.” I wondered how much “experience” he had in these matters. I really did...
[G]randma was always afraid of something. She set aside time each day for dread. And not nameless dread. She was quite specific about the various tragedies stalking her. She feared pneumonia, muggers, riptides, meteors, drunk drivers, drug addicts, s...
We love WWII because the cause was so obviously just, because you can't be a good person and say you wouldn't fight against an evil like that. It was so black and white on our side, and on our side so few died. (Our side meaning the lantern-jawed Joh...
...the solitude was intoxicating. On my first night there I lay on my back on the sticky carpet for hours, in the murky orange pool of city glow coming through the window, smelling heady curry spices spiraling across the corridor and listening to two...
Nationalism and socialism as actually lived and applied in the 20th century are the same thing (and in the 18th and 19th century, nationalism was often a force for classical liberalism!). It’s all a kind of reactionary tribalism (another “ism” ...
Spc. Owen Eldridge: Aren't you glad the Army has all these tanks parked here? Just in case the Russians come and we have to have a big tank battle? Sergeant JT Sanborn: I'd rather be on the side with the tanks, just in case, than not have them. Spc. ...
