solitary_summer | Entries tagged with quotes

That's all I have to do, she thought to herself. All I have to do is open my eyes.

The idea was so simple it made her weep. She could feel the tears pressing between her locked lashes and running down her cheeks.

Open your eyes, she told herself.

Clive Barker, Abarat, & probably not making much sense out of context.

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: K.A.Hartmann, Sinfonie nr. 4

... and affection it is that brings me here, no doubt. Even a frigid, self-sufficing man needs something of this interchange if he is not to die in his unmechanical part: natural philosophy, music, dead men's conversation, is not enough.

(Stephen, in PC)

To say I don't like Stephen as a character would not be true at all, but I recognise too much of myself in him to be in any danger of romanticising him. The reserve, the cold, observant, academic view of life, unless something truly goes against his principles, the awareness of some darkness threatening within; the need for privacy, the dislike to feel himself indebted to anyone... even the tendency to be (*cough*) something less than orderly. Falling - hard - for someone he knows is going to hurt him. Perhaps this is why I, like he, was so instantly drawn to Jack's much more candid, impetuously enthusiastic character...

# Chinese zodiac, gacked from

czaria... It doesn't match a hundred percent, and I'm not sure how much probability there can be in assigning a bunch of characteristics to people born within a whole year, but I'm much closer to the Rat than to what the typical Gemini is supposed to be. A streak of the artistic perhaps, but little else fits.

#

50bookchallenge update here

Current Mood: relaxed
Current Music: K. A. Hartmann, Symphonie nr. 7

Cold. Alarm at six, crawled out of bed, shivered, checked the news website for the weather (still no thermometer after four years in this flat), and, wtf, not even three degrees; morning run canceled, coffee postponed, back to bed, woke up again at nine, cranky, disorientated and more tired than three hours earlier.

It went downhill from there, fast.

(Though either I was exuding bad karma today (always a possibility), or it wasn't just me who had a bad day, because customers were generally annoying and two of them told me, unprompted, that this was the kind of day where just everything went wrong.)

Jack glanced up, and there against the Southern Cross, high on the humming topgallant forestay, was the sloth, rocking easy with the rhythm of the ship.

(from HMS Surprise)

The sloth, I might mention, cheered up what remained of the day immensely....

Current Mood: indifferent
Current Music: tool, H.

Quoted from an interview with Stephen Fry, here:

Bertrand Russell, the great philosopher and mathematician, got into terrible trouble by writing quite fearsome articles against the first World War when it began. He got all these letters from people who said, “My child is prepared to lay down their life for their country. Don't you think that sacrifice demands some respect?” He wrote this extraordinary essay in which he said, “Don't you understand? The sacrifice we're asking of our young is not that they die for their country, but that they kill for their country.” That's the sacrifice. To ask a child to kill someone else, whom you've never met. That's a moral choice, pulling a trigger. Having a bullet hit you is not a moral choice. You don't decide to be killed. It's a terrible thing that happens to you. But killing something is something you do and that's a desperate sacrifice. And we're seeing that in the Iraq war. That's what this poor Lynndie England did, this tragic soldier who was shot smugly smiling next to naked Arab prisoners. That's the chickens coming home to roost. It's not Americans being asked to die by President Bush. It's Americans being asked to kill and to torture. Not necessarily by name. He doesn't say, “I want you to kill this or that one.” Of course, politics isn't that simple. Essentially that is what society does. It asks its young to kill, and that's what we all have to live with. That's why people who survive wars don't like talking about them. It's not because they're modest or anything. I'm sure many of them are. It's because they live with images of squeezing triggers and seeing young men a hundred yards away being torn to pieces. Those are the awful things.

I'm not sure I agree a hundred percent, because IMO there still is some kind of ethical decision for you to make before you have your smiling pictures taken with people you tortured/humiliated, but I very much agree with the principle of the thing.

( Some rambling disjointed thoughts about TM's Felix Krull )

[Hoping that

soavezefiretto is too busy moving in, to pounce & disgustedly pick this apart. ;) ]

love is either magnificent, passionate and unexpected or it's best replaced for great literature, travelling, ideals. fuck all that needing to find someone. nobody needs to find anyone. if there's anyone to be found then it was never there, never meant to be, as love can only be true if it feels that there was never a begining. it's like rain; it just rains, you don't force the water down from the sky.

(

juno, here)

Current Music: i got life (hair)

Unser Menschenhirn, unser Leib und Gebein - Mosaiken seien sie derselben Elementarteilchen, aus denen Sterne und Sternstaub, die dunklen, getriebenen Dunstwolken des interstellaren Raumes beständen.

(Thoman Mann, Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull)

Then I will tell you a great secret, Captain, perhaps the greatest of all time. The molecules of your body are the same molecules that make up this station and the nebula outside, that burn inside the stars themselves. We are starstuff. We are the universe, made manifest, trying to figure itself out.

(Delenn to Sheridan, in B5: A Distant Star)

[Even if it isn't the most original thought ever, and most likely there are one (or several) common source(s) behind both quotes, it's still nice... connections, again.]

whinewhinewhine

Right. I'm officially an internet addict (as if I hadn't known this before) - I'm not happy unless I can whine on lj.

Called K. and left work at noon, because I wasn't feeling too well (exhausted after a bare half hour walk to work), though I guess that might be a reaction to the tetanus shot more than anything else. Treated myself to an ice-cream that turned out to be somewhat disappointing. Bought what I thought was grapefruit juice, but in fact was pineapple. Hungry. Slept/drowsed through the afternoon. Somewhat more awake now.

Learning to be ambidextrous, or rather I'm trying not to use the right hand at all, to avoid accidentally straining the stitches (inner side of the top joint, of all places). Transfered the mouse to the left side of the keyboard and getting better at using it left-handed.

.:.:.:.

Today's political climate doesn't allow the luxury of apathy.

(Trent Reznor, in response to a fan's question, here)

Current Mood: tired, whiny
Current Music: someone playing the piano

[Following a comment posted in

czaria's journal.... (& also a discussion I had with Manuela's boyfriend recently.)]

The fact is we are willing enough to praise freedom when she is safely tucked away in the past and cannot be a nuisance. In the present, amidst dangers whose outcome we cannot foresee, we get nervous about her, and admit censorship.

[from E. M. Forster, The Tercentenary of the Areopagitica]

To have faith requires courage, the ability to take a risk, the readiness even to accept pain and disappointment. Whoever insists on safety and security as primary conditions of life cannot have faith; whoever shuts himself off in a system of defense, where distance and possession are his means of security, makes himself a prisoner. To be loved, and to love, need courage, the courage to judge certain values as of ultimate concern - and to take the jump and stake everything at these values.

[from E. Fromm, The Art of Loving]

Now I don't think this would mean we should throw over-board all reason and common sense, but the question remains, how do you fight people who are willing - happy, even - to die for what they believe in anyway? Personally I think a little honesty and faith in what we believe in (or supposed to believe in) would go a long way. Probably not with the fanatics, but in the greater scheme of things the violent minority isn't the problem: the real problem is always how many people are willing to look away, if not quietly approve and support, and I think with them we're losing credibility fast, if we ever had it in the first place.

Dictators like Saddam Hussein violate human rights, but every single time the western world uses human rights as a cover for military and/or economic imperialism, every time something like what happened in Iraq happens, the very concept of human rights is hollowed out just a little more.

And it's not just that. We ought to be able to offer something as an alternative to violence and extremism, but is it really so wrong, if it is perceived that all we have to offer is superficial consumerism, when we're willing to look on when rights we supposedly cherish are slowly taken away, if not willingly given up, in return for some questionable safety?

Obviously I'm not suggesting to pitch christian extremism against islamic extremism, but what about the humanitarian values in theory our constitutions and societies are based upon... freedom, justice, equality, human rights. It's not about being all over the place, trying to fix things; it's mainly about practicing what we preach. If in a democratic state (in theory, if sadly not always in practice) everyone is equal before the law, how can we justify double standards in international law? No law-giver can place himself above his own laws and still expect to be called a democrat.

Ahem. Stepping down from the box now.

[ETA: just remembered this one... what they say about human nature never changing... it's true. *sigh*]

Current Music: songs in the key of x

Opened my book of poems by W.H.Auden today and the first thing I saw was this, which struck me as a strangely beautiful image:

Altogether elsewhere, vast
Herds of reindeer move across
Miles and miles of golden moss,
Silently and very fast.

[[Another random, and really rather stupid, thing, I caught George Michael's 'Amazing' video on tv today, and it's not as if the lyrics were all that special, probably nothing that hasn't been said & sung (and smirked at by me) a million times before, but still it suddenly struck me... does this kind of thing actually happen? Can love 'save you'?

*self-disgusted* Gah. I blame spring for this... sentimentality. ]]

Current Mood: awake

It's amazing how my father can still off-handedly destroy my sketchy self-confidence and balance, probably out of sheer thoughtlessness, without even meaning to.

And there I am, always feeling guilty when I can't be as kind and affectionate towards him as I'd like to be. No more, though. No more.

.:.:.:.

[TM diaries]

Der Traum ist im Grunde nicht von schlechterer Substanz, als das wirkliche Erlebnis, das sich auch abschwächt und verfliegt, in die Vergangenheit sinkt u. auch nur noch Traum ist. (3. 2. 52)

Strange. Sad, too. Not true, I'd like to hope. Though recently when my memory kept bringing up dream fragments and fragments of real memories indifferently, I was in fact wondering whether my mind made any distinction at all between them.

Current Mood: angry
Current Music: apc, a stranger

(Five free days for me, starting tomorrow...)

[TM diaries]

... über das Quälende der Atmosphäre dieses Landes, andererseits der Klein- und Einheit der Welt, in der es kein Entkommen mehr gibt. Immerhin die europäische Luft adäquater und die Erde vertrauter, darin zu ruhen. (30. 11. 51)

Meist graut mir vor allem. Ich habe fast keine anderen als peinliche Erinnerungen, und die Zukunft scheint nur Versagen zu bergen. Mein Leben scheint mir eines Umsturzes, wie er geplant ist, nicht mehr wert zu sein. Wenn ich in die Schweiz gehe, tue ich es nicht, um dort zu leben, sondern um dort zu sterben. Aber der Körper ist noch sehr widerstandsfähig. (15. 12. 51)

Man zögert, auf seine Lage das Wort »verzweifelt« anzuwenden, tut es aber heimlich doch. (19. 12. 51)

Current Mood: indifferent
Current Music: suede, breakdown

Feeling more balanced recently, more grounded, more like myself; reading more - serious stuff, that is - with more pleasure, and greater concentration - cause and effect (??), but which is which?

At the same time, scrolling down, I get the feeling that my journal entries have become bland and boring (or maybe more so), either trivial or merely observing/analysing, but in either case rather impersonal. There must be something to write about, a way to express emotions, even when I'm not in depressed drama queen mode for once...

.:.:.:.

[TM diaries]

»Faust muß in die Welt geführt werden.« Aber ich besitze wenig Welt. (22. 7. 51)

Sehr warm. Sonne, die Feindin. Soll scheinen, aber nicht auf mich. (20. 8. 51)

Gondel-Drahtseil-Fahrt zu vieren mit der melancholischen Edith, auf den, ich glaube Stubenkogel. Kalter Sprühregen. Antipathie gegen die Gipfelkahlheit. (27. 8. 51)

13 Stunden! Die natürlich völlig verschoben und verwirrt werden. Ich nenne es »Mitternachtssonne mit Frühstück«. (15. 9. 51)

Gefühl, daß dies alles meinem Schreiben und Lieben und Leiden, meiner Humanität zum Grunde liegt (4. 10. 51 - Chicago naturhistor. Museum)

Bewegt von alldem. Gingen noch durch die Unterführung ins Aquarium hinüber und schritten es ganz ab, vertieft in den Anblick dieser nach einem Gundprinzip so vielfach abgewandelten Geschöpfe, rudernder Schildkröten, den Schild mit grünem Moos bewachsen, glotzende Teleskop-Augen, Kiemenarbeit, langsam schnappende Mäuler, kleine Haie mit spitzen Zähnen, flunderflache und plumpe, rundliche Wesen, winzige, zusammen mit großen, die offenbar unagressiv, höchst putzsüchtige in kompliziertem federartigen roten Schmuck, das größere und reichere davon vielleicht das Weibchen. Unermüdet von diesem Schauen. Keine Kunstgallerie könnte mich so interessieren. (6. 10. 51; Befremdung über Gide.)

Buch über amerik. Homosexualität, von einem Beteiligten. (9. 10. 51)

Current Mood: awake
Current Music: rhcp, parallel universe

... No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one's existence - that which makes its truth, its meaning - its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream - alone...

[from Joseph Conrad's, Heart of Darkness, which I'm currently reading]

I'd like to believe that this isn't true, or at least not wholly true...

Current Music: tool, reflection

Hated the movie with an angry passion, but god! I love that song. Not necessarily agree with it, but it's wonderful nevertheless....

I've seen it all, I've seen the dark
I've seen the brightness in one little spark.
I've seen what I chose and I've seen what I need,
And that is enough, to want more would be greed.
I've seen what I was and I know what I'll be
I've seen it all - there is no more to see!

Current Music: björk/thom yorke, i've seen it all

[TM diaries]

Warum schreibe ich dies alles? Um es noch rechtzeitig vor meinem Tode zu vernichten? Oder wünsche, daß die Welt mich kenne?

(25. 8. 50)

- - - - -

[Random.... Went through my listed interests recently, because too many things no longer strictly relevant have accumulate there, and maybe tend to give the wrong impression of who I am (and why am I so obsessed with that? - creating the right impression, that is.), and was on the verge of deleting Suede, but upon re-listening I find I still like at least the Anderson/Butler cds a lot, they've really got a very unique mood...]

Current Mood: tired, drained
Current Music: suede, new generation

After almost three volumes I'd like to be able to say something (*cough* ) intelligent & insightful (*cough*) about reading TM's diaries... Impossible, so far, and that's an odd state of mind for me, because I usually have no difficulty dissecting & analysing things to death. It's not so much being at a loss for words, rather a loss for thoughts, or sufficiently defined thoughts. Difficult enough with the novels - I sympathise with his american publisher, who wrote à propos Doktor Faustus, I cannot flatter myself (...) that I have understood more than a part of the book but the diaries? What exactly is the attraction?

Das Wetter wieder zu warm und sonnig. - In diesen Tagen viel leidende Begierde und Nachsinnen über ihr Wesen und ihre Ziele, über erotische Begeisterung im Streit mit der Einsicht in ihr Illusorisches. Das höchste Schöne, behauptet als solches gegen eine Welt, ich würde es nicht anrühren wollen. Reisingers »Was will man?«, einmal auf einem Spaziergang in Küßnacht, als von Clawdias Armen die Rede war. Über das alles bekennend zu schreiben, würde mich zerstören. - - - Lange gearbeitet. - Neue Bekachelung in den Badezimmern. Neubau-Unordnung. Im Studio geruht. Im Garten Exterminierung des vernachlässigten und halb abgestorbenen Lemon-Trees. Viel Post. (...)
[4. XII. 49]

Current Music: rem, drive

... vaguely continuing from last post; also relating to something

soavezefiretto wrote some time ago about art and it being a necessary part of our lives, which I wanted to reply to, but never actually got around to ...

I discussed this with M. once, at work, and she wouldn't see my point, but I think most art - great art, groundbreaking art - comes from a place of inner conflict, often pain: most artists' biographies are not exactly those of happy people. Depending on my mood this has, at times, made me feel almost like a voyeur, or maybe a kind of vampire - even if the book/work of art is important to oneself, if one does connect to it, even if the artist wanted (needed) to share his/her feelings, there is a (probably totally irrational) element of almost-guilt, feeding on someone's pain, being entertained by it... there's a nin bootleg that makes me uneasy every time I listen to it, but it's even more complicated when the pain isn't so obvious in the art. I browsed through Marc Almond's autobiography recently, because during my late teens/early twenties I was quite a fan and was almost appalled at having liked the music never knowing where it came from.

Art... either creating it or looking at it is, I think, a way of trying to figure ourselves out, to better understand ourselves. Plato was deeply suspicious of most art, but he himself started out as a poet.

"We are starstuff, we are the universe made manifest, trying to figure itself out."

Religion is irrelevant as a sponsor or inspiration for art today at least in the western world, and state art has mostly disappeared just as we've ceased to define ourselves mainly by our place in society; any too close connection between art and politics is regarded as suspicious. Art today is ideally highly individualistic...

... if we all were truly happy and balanced, if we understood ourselves (not that this is going to happen any time soon, but merely for the sake of the argument) would art render itself useless and eventually disappear?

( quoted from Nietzsche's Also sprach Zarathustra... )

... he, of course, takes the pessimistic view.

Current Music: mozart, don giovanni

( apc, sleeping beauty )

... which describes just perfectly why I'm not a good person to know on a more than superficial level....

Current Music: apc, sleeping beauty

heard today on B5... ('The Coming of Shadows ')

"The past tempts us, the present confuses us, and the future frightens us. And our lives slip away, moment by moment, lost in that vast terrible inbetween."

Current Mood: melancholy

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life without a plot

Entries tagged with quotes

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