B.R. Myers > Quotes

“People who cannot distinguish between good and bad language, or who regard the distinction as unimportant, are unlikely to think carefully about anything else.”
― B. R. Myers

“Every new book we read in our brief and busy lives means that a classic is left unread.”
― B.R. Myers

“But farm workers kill animals because they can support their families by doing so, whereas we order the killing for reasons that have never been more frivolous, now that meat is no longer considered necessary for one's health, and soy products can replicate to an uncanny degree the experience of eating it. I know, "It's just not the same" — but as with the child molester, who probably thinks those very words when he rolls off his wife, the nonviolent pleasure is surely close enough to the violent one to make an insistence on the latter even more monstrous. Has any generation in history ever been so ready to cause so much suffering for such a trivial advantage? We deaden our consciences to enjoy—for a few minutes a day—the taste of blood, the feel of our teeth meeting through muscle. It's enough, as Balzac would say, to disgust a sow.”
― B.R. Myers

“Even a nation brainwashed to equate artsiness with art knows when its eyelids are drooping.”
― B.R. Myers, A Reader's Manifesto: An Attack on the Growing Pretentiousness in American Literary Prose

“. . . Oprah Winfrey told of calling Toni Morrison to say she had had to puzzle repeatedly over many of the latter's sentences. According to Oprah, Morrison's reply was "That, my dear, is called reading." Sorry, my dear Toni, but it's actually called bad writing. Great prose isn't always easy but it's always lucid; no one of Oprah's intelligence ever had to puzzle over what Joseph Conrad was trying to say in a particular sentence.”
― B.R. Myers, A Reader's Manifesto: An Attack on the Growing Pretentiousness in American Literary Prose

“Life cannot be classified in terms of a simple neurological ladder, with human beings at the top; it is more accurate to talk of different forms of intelligence, each with its strengths and weaknesses. This point was well demonstrated in the minutes before last December's tsunami, when tourists grabbed their digital cameras and ran after the ebbing surf, and all the 'dumb' animals made for the hills.”
― B.R. Myers

“A personality cult comes into being when a one-man dictatorship presents itself as a democracy. The goal is to convey the impression that due to the ruler’s unique qualifications and the unanimity of the people’s love for him, his rule constitutes the perfect fulfillment of democratic ideals.”
― B.R. Myers, The Cleanest Race

“The educated classes, however, being more highly propagandized (as the educated always are),”
― B.R. Myers, The Cleanest Race

“Кожен дім має свої таємниці.”
― B.R. Myers, A Dreadful Splendour

“Paranoid nationalism may well be an intellectual void, and appeal to the lowest instincts—there is nothing in North Korean ideology that a child of twelve cannot grasp at once—but for that very reason it has proven itself capable of uniting citizens of all classes, and inspiring them through bad times as well as good ones.”
― B.R. Myers, The Cleanest Race

“The surrender of something attained heroically and at great cost — something to which the well-being of entire generations has been sacrificed — is far more dangerous to a government than not having it to begin with.”
― B.R. Myers

“Товариство містера Пембертона виявилося так само "приємним", як камінець у моєму черевику... під час тривалої прогулянки... під дощем... одного холодного дня.”
― B.R. Myers, A Dreadful Splendour

“The question of where Europe ends and Asia begins has troubled many people over the years, but here's a rule of thumb: if someone can pose as an expert on the country in question without knowledge of the relevant language, it's part of Asia.”
― B.R. Myers

“Я бачила прояви горя у представників різних суспільних прошарків, від багатіїв до бідних, і відкрила для себе одну універсальну істину, пов'язану зі смертю: смерть навіки змінювала тих, хто пережив утрату.”
― B.R. Myers, A Dreadful Splendour

“We will never lose sight of our heritage, for if we forget where we came from we will lose our way forward.”
― B.R. Myers

“Можна багато чого дізнатися про мертвих, спостерігаючи за проявами скорботи їхніх рідних.”
― B.R. Myers, A Dreadful Splendour

“Praxis ser ut såhär: Man argumenterar emot i sakligt tonläge tills man blir trängd. Då släpper man helt sonika ämnet, smiter därifrån och låtsas som om man inte alls har fått slut på argument utan istället ställt sig över dem. Sedan håller man upp som en stor gåta detta att ens övertygelse är så oförenlig med argumenten, och antyder att den ödmjuka beredvilligheten att leva med detta mysterium höjer en över de futtigare själarna och deras gottköpssanningar.”
― B.R. Myers

“But no amount of economic and military aid can earn a foreign country the sort of good will that extends to parts of the Text intended exclusively for domestic consumption. While Chinese visitors to the war museum in Pyongyang are shown exhibits acknowledging their country’s enormous sacrifice, locals are taken on another route where they see and hear no mention of it.”
― B.R. Myers, The Cleanest Race

“Literature need not answer every question it raises, but the questions themselves should be clear.”
― B.R. Myers, A Reader's Manifesto: An Attack on the Growing Pretentiousness in American Literary Prose

“Great prose isn't always easy but it's always lucid.”
― B.R. Myers, A Reader's Manifesto: An Attack on the Growing Pretentiousness in American Literary Prose

“Nationalism is about putting the (ethno-)nation above liberal-democratic and leftist values alike. Once one takes that step, one is not separated from other nationalists by anything irreducible.”
― B.R. Myers

“In 1965, the Cuban ambassador to the DPRK, a black man, was squiring his wife and some Cuban doctors around the city when locals surrounded their car, pounding it and shouting racial epithets.20 Police called to the scene had to beat the mob back with truncheons. “The level of training of the masses is extremely low,” a high-ranking official later told the shaken diplomat. “They cannot distinguish between friends and foes.”21 This was precisely the mindset that the regime sought to instil.”
― B.R. Myers, The Cleanest Race

“Привиди не можуть завдати вам шкоди. Слід боятися живих людей, тих, що стоять по цей бік скла.”
― B.R. Myers, A Dreadful Splendour