“How can these people strike dignified attitudes, and pretend that things really matter, when the total ludicrousness of life is proved by the very method by which it is supported? A man strikes the lyre, and says, ‘Life is real, life is earnest,’ and then goes into a room and stuffs alien substances into a hole in his head.”
The king in G.K. Chesterton The Napoleon of Notting Hill
“Does history repeat itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce? No, that’s too grand, too considered a process. History just burps, and we taste again that raw-onion sandwich it swallowed centuries ago.”
Julian Barnes, quoted as “Thought du jour” in Globe & Mail March 21, 2002
In my latest National Post column I say the American boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics was a much better idea than I realized at the time, and we should do it again over Beijing in 2022 for much the same reasons.
“If we really do discount time positively, why does anyone ever eat their cake then their icing?”
OK, this one’s me again, from April 5, 2002, and possibly only interesting to economists.
In my latest Epoch Times column I say the now-routine desperate improvisation to avoid fiscal ruin is not going to end well in Washington, or here in Canada.
“The truth is, whatever you can’t talk about is already out of control in your life…”
Rick Warren The Purpose-Driven Life
“I couldn’t wait for success, so I went ahead without it.”
“Jonathan Winters (1925-), American comedian and actor” quoted as “Thought du jour” in “Social Studies” in Globe & Mail December 28, 2011
“The question of the existence of God is the single most important question we face about the nature of reality…. Neither question [does the concept of a personal God make sense and should we believe in one] is easy to answer. God is a different kind of being from any other that we might speak about.”
John Polkinghorne The Faith of a Physicist