…but still my last waking effort was to listen and distinguish, and my last conscious state was one of wonder at the foreign clamour in my ears.
– R. L. Stevenson, Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes
The thing was easy to decide, hard to accomplish.
– R. L. Stevenson, Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes
Of all conceivable journeys, this promised to be the most tedious.
– R. L. Stevenson, Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes
The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.
– John Steinbeck, Cannery Row
You had to know that I was fond of you,
Fond of Y-O-U
– The Shins, Turn On Me
Every thing’s got a moral, if only you can find it.
– Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
You sense that there is something treacherous hiding behind every reef; no matter how much you explore you won’t ever know what it is.
– Jerzy Kosinski, The Devil Tree
Work is largely repetitive, while reading imparts something new.
– Sean
We can talk to each other about consciousness, but it is fundamentally, ineradicably subjective in character, a phenomenon that can be experienced only alone, from within.
– Tor Norretranders, The User Illusion
For there are two possible reactions to social ostracism – either a man emerges determined to be better, purer, and kindlier or he goes bad, challenges the world and does even worse things.
– John Steinbeck, Cannery Row