Blogging the Bookshelf » Quotes

First Drafts – “Twenty fragments of a ravenous youth” – Xiaolu Guo

Tim — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 02:02:05 +0000

Have you ever heard this: “Don’t maul, don’t suffer, don’t groan – till the first draft is finished”?’

‘Who said that?’ ‘Tennessee Williams.’

Chinese Romance – “Twenty fragments of a ravenous youth” – Xiaolu Guo

Tim — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 23:32:06 +0000

YOU CAN CHECK ANY CHINESE DICTIONARY, there’s no word for romance. We say ‘Lo Man’, copying the English pronunciation. What the fuck use was a word like romance to me anyway? There wasn’t much of it about in China, and Beijing was the least romantic place in the whole universe. ‘Eat first, talk later,’ as old people say.

Two Big Steps – “Twenty fragments of a ravenous youth” – Xiaolu Guo

Tim — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 04:30:05 +0000

When I left my village, it was like I took a step with my right foot and, by the time my left foot came to join it, four years had passed.

The Pornography of Power - “The Trial of Henry Kissinger” – Christopher Hitchens

Tim — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 02:00:05 +0000

I’ve noticed, time and again standing at the back of the audience during Kissinger speeches, that laughter of the nervous, uneasy kind is the sort of laughter he likes to provoke. In exacting this tribute, he flaunts not the ‘aphrodisiac’ of power (another of his plagiarized bon mots) but its pornography.

A Dog Lives as Long as its Teeth – “The Spy Who Came in From The Cold” – John LeCarre

Tim — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 02:30:05 +0000

It is said a dog lives as long as its teeth;

Matters of Interest but no Importance – “Cannery Row” – John Steinbeck

Tim — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 23:31:05 +0000

Through the windows he could see Mack and the boys sitting on the pipes in the vacant lot, dangling their feet in the mallow weeds and taking the sun while they discoursed slowly and philosophically of matters of interest but of no importance.

On Autobiography – “Notes on Dali” from “Fifty Orwell Essays” – George Orwell

Tim — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 04:40:05 +0000

Autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful. A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats.

The Ugliness of Left Wing Women? – “Fifty Orwell Essays” – George Orwell

Tim — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 23:50:06 +0000

Those who struggle against society are, on the whole, those who have reason to dislike it, and normal healthy people are no more attracted by violence and illegality than they are by war. The young Nazi in ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE makes the penetrating remark that one can see what is wrong with the left-wing movement by the ugliness of its women.

The Greatest Description of a Bureaucrat Of All Time – “Fifty Orwell Essays” – George Orwell

Tim — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 23:35:05 +0000

…officials with their prehensile bottoms, will obstruct for all they are worth.

Orwell really had a way with figurative speech…

Our Faults Uncured – “Cultural Amnesia” – Clive James

Tim — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 23:22:05 +0000

Proust says it for him elsewhere: those we like least are those most like us, but with the faults uncured.