“I envy paranoids; they actually feel people are paying attention to them.”
Susan Sontag, quoted as “Thought du jour” in Globe & Mail July 23 2001
“You’re so ugly you could be a modern art masterpiece.”
Gunnery Sargeant Hartman in Full Metal Jacket]
“Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in the face of certain defeat.”
Ralph Ellison Invisible Man
“For everywhere, above and below, you will find nothing but the selfsame things; they fill the pages of all history, ancient, modern, and contemporary; and they fill our cities and homes today. There is no such thing as novelty; all is as trite as it is transitory.”
Marcus Aurelius Meditations VII.1
“When people can stand up, they’re thinking of killing you. Whereas when they’re ill, there’s no doubt about it, they’re less dangerous.”
“Louis-Fernand Celine, doctor turned novelist” quoted by Florence King in National Review March 29, 1993
“There is nothing useless in nature; not even uselessness itself.”
Montaigne, quoted in Jon Winokur Zen To Go
“The important thing is not to win but to take part.”
The refounder of the Olympics, Pierre de Coubertin, quoted in Maclean’s Dec, 7 1992
“‘I disagree,’ John Keats once wrote in a letter, about the world as a ‘vale of tears... Call the world, if you please, “the vale of soul-making.” Then you will find out the use of the world.’”
Thomas Boswell, How Life Imitates The World Series