Joshua V. Scher > Quotes

“Truth isn’t solid. It’s liquid. It takes on the shape of whatever container it’s poured into.”
― Joshua V. Scher, Here & There

“No matter what the whiny poets say, love isn’t as all encompassing, eternal, and fervent as the Romantics have led us to believe. It can be compartmentalized, momentary, and considered. I can fall in love twelve times walking down the block. Once with a smile, another time with the sway of a ponytail as it bounces left to right with every step, and again with the way a girl places a hand on her boyfriend’s shoulder absentmindedly. But when we express love, when we voice a term that we all define together, we get lost. You say one thing, she hears another. Each of us tells himself a story about what this other person means. But words aren’t fixed. Words are merely containers that we pour meaning into and try to give it shape. If people could just accept that, they’d be a whole lot happier.”
― Joshua V. Scher, Here & There

“Somewhere along the way, life kicks the fulcrum out from under us. We fall, we hurt, and then we push the seesaw down to where the fulcrum waits, and rebalance, until the next kick. It’s the journey of living. Whether it’s a changing environment, an emotional loss, a damning diagnosis—we accept, we endure, we normalize.”
― Joshua V. Scher, Here & There

“you’re never lonely when you’re in pain.”
― Joshua V. Scher, Here & There

“The philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds.”
― Joshua V. Scher, Here & There

“To the scientist there is the joy in pursuing truth which nearly counteracts the depressing revelations of truth. ~H. P. Lovecraft”
― Joshua V. Scher, Here & There

“wrote”
― Joshua V. Scher, Here & There

“Toby found himself sharing a stool with a tipsy redheaded actress who wore Ugg boots, a scarf, and eye shadow with glitter (aka the herpes of makeup).”
― Joshua V. Scher, Here & There

“According to Isaac Asimov, “The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka!’ but ‘That’s funny . . .”
― Joshua V. Scher, Here & There

“Or is it not even the truth? Another fiction perhaps, a riddle deciphered by the algebra of lying.”
― Joshua V. Scher, Here & There

“I have the distinct feeling that my bedroom ceiling fan is spreading rumors about me.”
― Joshua V. Scher, Here & There

“I wish I could run away from me.”
― Joshua V. Scher, Here & There

“A Zen master once told me to do the opposite of whatever he told me. So I didn’t.”
― Joshua V. Scher, Here & There

“There comes a point when too much is nothing at all. Infinity and zero, twin extremes.”
― Joshua V. Scher, Here & There

“Behavior isn’t driven by permanent traits that apply across the board. Rather, someone could be honest at work, but deceptive with his spouse. People don’t have character, but rather a multiplicity of tendencies activated by context.”
― Joshua V. Scher, Here & There

“It could not last. Eventually the petals fell from the bloom. They are not who they once were.”
― Joshua V. Scher, Here & There

“Inevitably, pressure increases on intimate relationships as they take on all-encompassing importance in a contracting world. The stress has a polarizing effect of either cannibalizing the relationship or canonizing it. It becomes the scapegoat or panacea for all the escalating and destabilizing frustration of exile.”
― Joshua V. Scher, Here & There

“Knowledge, its pursuit, its mastery, is merely an illusion of comprehension that conveniently distracts us from our limits. ~E. Tassat, “Fencing in the Liminal State”
― Joshua V. Scher, Here & There

“And if publishers are too skittish to bite—sell it as goddamn fiction. Make yourself the author and change the names if necessary. Do whatever it takes.”
― Joshua V. Scher, Here & There

“Dalí from the Back Painting a Person at the Window from the Back Eternalized by Six Virtual Panes Provisionally. In”
― Joshua V. Scher, Here & There

“A Buddhist monk walks into a pizza parlor and asks for them to make him one with everything.”
― Joshua V. Scher, Here & There

“Facts are merely data; the interpretation of them, however, is knowledge.”
― Joshua V. Scher, Here & There

“Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others. ~Dostoevsky”
― Joshua V. Scher, Here & There

“words aren’t fixed. Words are merely containers that we pour meaning into and try to give it shape.”
― Joshua V. Scher, Here & There

“a page”
― Joshua V. Scher, Here & There

“In the beginning is the deed. ~Goethe”
― Joshua V. Scher, Here & There

“Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident. ~Mark Twain”
― Joshua V. Scher, Here & There

“Ben Franklin noted the malleability and power of language: “A rebellion is always legal in the first person, such as ‘our rebellion.’ It is only in the third person—‘their rebellion’—that it becomes illegal.”
― Joshua V. Scher, Here & There

“You can’t fight failure any more than you can resist the gravity of the future.”
― Joshua V. Scher, Here & There

“The average human body, which is 99 percent hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon is made up of over seven thousand trillion atoms.”
― Joshua V. Scher, Here & There