“‘The best lack all conviction...’ something like that. ‘What rough beast... slouches towards Bethlehem to be born.’ A creature with bad posture, nightmare of the world.”
Philip K. Dick The Transmigration of Timothy Archer
“‘France may be a predominantly Roman Catholic country, but it is also officially secular, with separation of church and state one of its most sacred tenets.’ – New York Times, April 8”
The Wall St. Journal's OpinionJournal April 8, 2005 [under the very appropriate headline “If It’s Sacred, Doesn’t It Violate Itself?”]
“Is Britney Spears the next Madonna? I surely hope not. One of either is a surplus.”
Rex Murphy in Globe & Mail Nov. 10, 2001
“We must have a holiday from habits, instead of merely a habit of taking holidays.”
G.K. Chesterton in London Magazine August 1924, quoted in Gilbert Magazine Vol. 16 #3 (Nov.-Dec. 2012)
In my latest National Post column I say John Le Carré’s novels were morally rotten and dangerous in practice.
“We need metaphors of magic and monsters in order to understand the human condition.”
Stephen Donaldson, quoted as “Thought du jour” in “Social Studies” in Globe & Mail May 25, 2007 [to which I add “Yes, but why?”]
“Leisure is a food, like sleep; liberty is a food, like sleep. Leisure is a matter of quality rather than quantity. Five minutes lasts longer when one cannot be disturbed than five hours when one maybe disturbed.”
G.K. Chesterton “On Holidays”, from New Witness May 21, 1914 in Gilbert Magazine Vol. 11 #7 (June 2008)
In my latest National Post column I say the outrageous way the Chinese government speaks about the outrageous things it does is a red flag about the outrageous way it thinks.