teenybooks

quote

More Bolano

In books, letters, quote on 9 June 2008 with 8 comments

Still wading through The Savage Detectives tonight.  My favorite part of reading is coming a passage that you love so wholly it becomes impossible not to want to share it with everyone:
And then comes the funny part…they just stood there and asked me whether I wrote love letters. Everything, boys, I told them, setting the [...]

soul in zen

In quote on 28 May 2008 with 124 comments

“There is a tempering that needs to go on, an acknowledgment of our vulnerability and all the things that we don’t know. The simultaneity of our wisdom and our foolishness. This is “The Clearly Enlightened Person Falls into a Well” koan. You can actually have a very deep understanding of the spiritual world and still [...]

White Teeth

In quote on 7 May 2008 tagged books, quotes, writers with 100 comments

If you enjoy reading, and you haven’t read White Teeth by Zadie Smith, I’m not going to gasp in horror, but I will say that you should take this as the highest form of recommendation and get on the ball. Find out more about the book here and here.
I’d read the book a few years [...]

the self and the other

In quote on 5 May 2008 with 26 comments

“Being ignorant means not knowing the true nature of the self, obscuring our natural and innate correspondence with everything that is, and drawing a sharp line between self and other. That painful and wholly imaginary line is the fake assurance that we can do what we like: we’re entitled, and there’ll be no repercussions, apart [...]

Two Women

In quote on 15 March 2008 with 7 comments

There were always in me, two women at least,
one woman desperate and bewildered,
who felt she was drowning and another who
would leap into a scene, as upon a stage,
conceal her true emotions because they
were weaknesses, helplessness, despair,
and present to the world only a smile,
an eagerness, curiosity, enthusiasm, interest.
Anaïs Nin

The Universe: planetarium reflections

In philosophy, quote on 13 March 2008 with 14 comments

I know I steal a lot from Whiskey River. Trust me, I don’t want to but I can’t help myself. Their quotes are so amazingly relevant that I can’t help but think to myself, so and so has to read this. So please do us both a favor, add it to your reader.
This one particularly [...]

On Self Respect: Part Deux

In personal, quote on 11 March 2008 with 6 comments

A few people ruminated on the recent post quoting Joan Didion’s On Self Respect and whether that would mean my slowly fading web presence/willingness to be as “accommodating”as I’ve been in years pass. And yes I’ve been answering fewer emails, sign into chat less frequently and considering the invasiveness of twitter. I offer a few [...]

On Self-Respect

In books, personal, quote, writers on 5 March 2008 with 97 comments

I read this quote in September when is was published on Maud Newton from Joan Didion’s Slouching Toward Bethlehem, told myself to buy the book (and I would have today had I not had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.) I’ve referenced it more than once in conversation and today I [...]

The Cocktail Party: T. S. Elliot

In quote, writers on 3 March 2008 with 12 comments

It will do you no harm to find yourself ridiculous.Resign yourself to be the fool you are.
You will find that you survive humiliationAnd that’s an experience of incalculable value.
That is the worst moment, when you feel you have lostThe desires for all that was most dersirable,Before you are contented with what you can desire;Before you [...]

Love/Karma

In found things, quote on 3 March 2008 with 5 comments

“The Opposite of Love is Not Hate.The Opposite of Love is Fear.And the Opposite of Fear is Understanding.Which means the Opposite of Understanding is Hate.”(found on the back of a Karma Card)