Generally: adversaria
Adversaria (12)
‘Lack of clarity is selfish and confusing. The writer is wasting your time. Up with this you need not put’ —Deidre Nansen McCloskey (Economical Writing, p. 17) ‘No one is prepared to be Serious, especially about Art. I liked the way these critics wrote and fell under the rhetorical spell of their semi-colons, qualifications and […]
Adversaria (11)
‘…poetry, which is like modern dance for uncoordinated people’ —Claire Dederer (Love & Trouble, ch. 13) ‘…The Editor, an avuncular but testy figure who might send a few encouraging words written in a discouraging hand’ —Lavinia Greenlaw (Some Answers Without Questions, p. 99) ‘I read the letters but couldn’t understand them. I could understand the […]
Adversaria (10)
In a certain sense, I think that my writing gets along better with the features of digital presence than physical presence. That’s why I’m sometimes tempted to post texts online, because there they can enjoy a continuous existence and, at least to all appearances, remain oblivious to worldly travails. The joy of forgetting and persisting […]
Adversaria (9)
An awareness of over-interpretation needn’t imply a kind of unattainable (and undesirable) objectivity, but rather a thoughtfully subjective approach, which does not involve second-guessing the artist. When content and materials are interpreted and combined in a balanced way, the result can be greater than the sum of its parts. A transformation of the given matter […]
Adversaria (8)
‘And yet it’s autumn now, as clear as water and as bright as a mirror, and I should be happy’ —Eileen Chang (‘On the Second Edition of Romances’, Written on Water, trans. Andrew F. Jones, p. 218) ‘Every reader is cumbered by an excess of books, and every book by an excess of readers—each overwhelmed […]
Adversaria (7)
‘…we must fall back upon the wholesome truth that we cannot delegate our intellectual functions, and say to a machine, to a formula, to a rule, or to a dogma, I am too lazy to think, do please think for me.’ —Edward Sang (‘On Mechanical Aids to Calculation. A Lecture to the Actuarial Society of […]
Adversaria (6)
‘The parallel reader. He has ten books open at once and reads one sentence in each, then the next sentence in the book beside it. What a scholar!’ —Elias Canetti (Notes from Hampstead, trans. John Hargraves, p. 68) ‘That poignant sensation which makes you take hold of a sentence as though it were a weapon’ […]
Adversaria (5)
‘Take a story from a place and drop it into another place and it doesn’t necessarily make sense, at least not at first. Like people, stories don’t always travel well. Nothing belongs everywhere, and some things only belong somewhere. But some stories, when they travel, can spark strange things in unmeasured hearts’ —Paul Kingsnorth (Savage […]
Adversaria (4)
‘At this point the dialogue with myself became uncomfortable, and I stopped thinking. I had reached a dead end’ —Carl Jung (Memories, Dreams, Reflections, trans. Richard and Clara Winston, p. 171) ‘…psycho-analysis brings out the worst in everyone.’ —Sigmund Freud (The History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement [in the Standard edition, vol. 14], p. 39) ‘The […]
Adversaria (3)
‘Their ideas were beautiful and academic, like pictures in a gallery, but somewhat remote’ —Carl Jung (Memories, Dreams, Reflections, trans. Richard & Clara Winston, p. 68) Just as his mission in life, to solve the puzzle of existence, represented an act of love for human kind, his love for Adele was analogous. His love of […]
Adversaria (2)
‘The deepest secrets are to be found in the simplest natural things, but, pining away for the Beyond, the speculative fantast treads them under his feet’ —Ludwig Feuerbach (‘Towards a Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy’, in The Fiery Brook: Selected Writings, p. 94, trans. Zawar Hanfi) ‘Even though many ideas come, we do not think about […]
Adversaria (1)
‘When you feel disagreeable it is better for you to sit. There is no other way to accept your problem and work on it.’ —Shunryu Suzuki (Zen Mind…, p. 40) ‘Engaging with mystery is neither problem-solving nor completing tasks. None of these mysteries can be solved, answered definitively, controlled, managed, or mastered. We never finish […]