my serendipities

"I’m not ready to let the youthful part of myself go yet. If maturity means becoming a cynic,..."

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 00:59:05 +0100

““I’m not ready to let the youthful part of myself go yet. If maturity means becoming a cynic, if you have to kill the part of yourself that is naive and romantic and idealistic - the part of you that you treasure most - to claim maturity, is it not better to die young but with your humanity intact?”

- Kenneth Cain

"I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don’t know the answer."

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 20:37:08 +0100

“I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don’t know the answer.”

- Douglas Adams

"There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and..."

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 20:35:03 +0100

“There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.”

- Douglas Adams

"He attacked everything in life with a mix of extraordinary genius and naive incompetence, and it was..."

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 20:33:06 +0100

“He attacked everything in life with a mix of extraordinary genius and naive incompetence, and it was often difficult to tell which was which.”

- Douglas Adams

"When you blame others, you give up your power to change."

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 20:32:08 +0100

“When you blame others, you give up your power to change.”

- Douglas Adams

"You fight your superficiality, your shallowness, so as to try to come at people without unreal..."

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 00:34:00 +0100

“You fight your superficiality, your shallowness, so as to try to come at people without unreal expectations, without an overload of bias or hope or arrogance, as untanklike as you can be, sans cannon and machine guns and steel plating half a foot thick; you come at them unmenacingly on your own ten toes instead of tearing up the turf with your caterpillar treads, take them on with an open mind, as equals, man to man, as we used to say, and yet you never fail to get them wrong. You might as well have the brain of a tank. You get them wrong before you meet them, while you’re anticipating meeting them; you get them wrong while you’re with them; and then you go home to tell somebody else about the meeting and you get them all wrong again. Since the same generally goes for them with you, the whole thing is really a dazzling illusion. … The fact remains that getting people right is not what living is all about anyway. It’s getting them wrong that is living, getting them wrong and wrong and wrong and then, on careful reconsideration, getting them wrong again. That’s how we know we’re alive: we’re wrong. Maybe the best thing would be to forget being right or wrong about people and just go along for the ride. But if you can do that — well, lucky you.”

- Philip Roth, American Pastoral (via rememo)

"We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves."

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 22:38:59 +0100

“We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.”

- Eric Hoffer

"The sick in soul insist that it is humanity that is sick, and they are the surgeons to operate on..."

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 22:37:40 +0100

“The sick in soul insist that it is humanity that is sick, and they are the surgeons to operate on it. They want to turn the world into a sickroom. And once they get humanity strapped to the operating table, they operate on it with an ax.”

- Eric Hoffer

You Are Not a Gadget - book cover designed by Olly Moss

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 22:19:39 +0100

You Are Not a Gadget - book cover designed by Olly Moss

“When you begin to get free, you will get depressed. It works like this: When you were three...

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 21:43:38 +0100

“When you begin to get free, you will get depressed. It works like this: When you were three years old, if your parents weren’t too bad, you knew how to play spontaneously. Then you had to go to school, where everything you did was required. The worst thing is that even the fun activities, like singing songs and playing games, were commanded under threat of punishment. So even play got tied up in your mind with a control structure, and severed from the life inside you. If you were “rebellious”, you preserved the life inside you by connecting it to forbidden activities, which are usually forbidden for good reasons, and when your rebellion ended in suffering and failure, you figured the life inside you was not to be trusted. If you were “obedient”, you simply crushed the life inside you almost to death.”

~ My American Nightmare, by Olena: How to Drop Out

“Going West” animation by andersen m studio

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 23:09:00 +0100

“Going West” animation by andersen m studio

"In any man who dies there dies with him, his first snow and kiss and fight. Not people die but..."

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:01:16 +0100

“In any man who dies there dies with him, his first snow and kiss and fight. Not people die but worlds die in them.”

- Yevgeny Yevtushenko (via ontheborderland & lastchatwithphontaine)

“He no longer wished to be dead. At the same time, it cannot be said that he was glad to be...

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:00:06 +0100

“He no longer wished to be dead. At the same time, it cannot be said that he was glad to be alive. But at least he did not resent it. He was alive, and the stubbornness of this fact had little by little begun to fascinate him - as if he had managed to outlive himself, as if he were somehow living a posthumous life.”

~ Paul Auster - City of Glass

“New York was an inexhaustible space, a labyrinth of endless steps, and no matter how far he...

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 15:52:00 +0100

“New York was an inexhaustible space, a labyrinth of endless steps, and no matter how far he walked, no matter how well he came to know its neighborhoods and streets, it always left him with the feeling of being lost. Lost, not only in the city, but within himself as well. Each time he took a walk, he felt as though he were leaving himself behind, and by giving himself up to the movement of the streets, by reducing himself to a seeing eye, he was able to escape the obligation to think, and this, more than anything else, brought him a measure of peace, a salutary emptiness within. The world was outside of him, around him, before him, and the speed with which it kept changing made it impossible for him to dwell on any one thing for very long. Motion was of the essence, the act of putting one foot in front of the other and allowing himself to follow the drift of his own body. By wandering aimlessly, all places became equal, and it no longer mattered where he was. On his best walks, he was able to feel that he was nowhere. And this, finally, was all he ever asked of things: to be nowhere. New York was the nowhere he had built around himself, and he realized that he had no intention of ever leaving it again.”

~ Paul Auster - City of Glass

"Whenever I climb I am followed by a dog called ‘Ego’."

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 15:49:35 +0100

“Whenever I climb I am followed by a dog called ‘Ego’.”

- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (via lastchatwithphontaine)

“Footing”

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 22:50:37 +0100

“Footing”

"I am free and that is why I am lost."

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 22:33:21 +0100

“I am free and that is why I am lost.”

- Franz Kafka

"Generally speaking, the most miserable people I know are those who are obsessed with themselves; the..."

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 20:23:00 +0100

“Generally speaking, the most miserable people I know are those who are obsessed with themselves; the happiest people I know are those who lose themselves in the service of others… By and large, I have come to see that if we complain about life, it is because we are thinking only of ourselves.”

- Gordon B. Hinckley (via rememo)

Téléchargement de photo Flickr: On theory, theories exist. In...

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 14:28:31 +0100

Téléchargement de photo Flickr: On theory, theories exist. In practice, they do not. / Bruno Latour

"If the voices in your head make you cry, you’re a lunatic. Put their words on paper, and..."

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 14:05:21 +0100

“If the voices in your head make you cry, you’re a lunatic. Put their words on paper, and you’re a writer.”

- D.VonThaer