Scholastic Quotes

“Making itself intelligible is suicide for philosophy.”
― Martin Heidegger

“We are not the ones in charge of language; language is in charge of us.”
― Thomas A. Schwandt, The SAGE Dictionary of Qualitative Inquiry

“Desperately, I looked in all directions. What struck me immediately was the violence. Everything seemed to be choking something else: Creepers twisted around brambles, brambles around vines, vines around trees. Every plant vied for space and the thin shafts of light that pushed through the greenery overhead. But there wasn’t enough space for all of them.

“Mel,” I screamed again, my throat scratchy and raw. My brown school oxfords made sucking sounds as I walked. I felt as if I were being pulled down, like the jungle might consume me.

From DAMSELFLY”
― Chandra Prasad

“Through a chink in my fingers, I watched Mel react. She fished around in her sock, producing a switchblade. She clicked it open and whipped it through the air. The steel blade caught the sunlight, and flashed. Then she tore after the creature, squealing and hoofing as it had. It looked up at her in dismay, and I partially pitied it, pitied the terror on its homely face. She swiped the blade across its side as it attempted to turn around, its legs scrabbling, its pudgy body squirming and twitching, trying in vain to push through the dense tangle. Mel had a chance to knife it again—I could see her debating whether she should, but she wiped the bloody blade against her sock instead. The injured creature finally made headway into the creepers. Another squeal, and then its backside and tufted tail disappeared into the undergrowth.

Shuddering, I moved my hands from my face. I stared at Mel. I tried to breathe. The pig’s blood looked bright and alarming against the grimy cotton of her sock.

FROM DAMSELFLY
“Will it die?” I whispered.

“I didn’t get it very deep. I should have killed it. Killed it before it killed you.”
― Chandra Prasad

“This theological life and witness is a blessing which sweetens man's life. It is a food which is cut up and given to others; a drink poured out and offered in abundance for man to consume and quench his thirst. In this state one does not talk about life, one gives it. One feeds the hungry and gives drink to the thirsty. By contrast, scholastic theology and intellectual constructions do not resemble the Body of the Lord, the true food, nor His Blood, the true drink; rather they are like a stone one finds in one's food. This is how indigestible and inhumanly hard the mass of scholasticism seems to the taste and the mouth of one accustomed to the liturgy of the Church, and it is rejected as something foreign and unacceptable.”
― Archimandrite Vasileios, Hymn of Entry: Liturgy and Life in the Orthodox Church

“He looked as he always did: slightly underfed, terminally scholastic, and two weeks overdue for a haircut.”
― S.T. Gibson, Evocation