“My doctor says that I have a malformed public-duty gland and a natural deficiency in moral fibre and that I am therefore excused from saving universes.”
― Life, the Universe and Everything
― Life, the Universe and Everything
“You're not sorry to go, of course. With people like us our home is where we are not... No one person in the world is necessary to you or to me.”
― This Side of Paradise
― This Side of Paradise
“My conduct with my friends is motivated: each being is, I believe, incapable on his own, of going to the end of being. If he tries, he is submerged within a "private being" which has meaning only for himself. Now there is no meaning for a lone individual: bing alone would of itself reject the "private being" if it saw it as such (if I wish my life to have meaning for me, it is necessary that it have meaning for others: no one would dare give to life a meaning which he alone would perceive, from which life in its entirety would escape, except within himself). At the extreme limit of the "possible", it is true, there is nonsense . . . but only of that which had a prior sense: this is fulguration, even "apotheosis" of nonsense. But I don't attain the extreme limit on my own and, in actual fact, I can't believe the extreme limit attained, for I never remain there. If I had to be the only one having attained it (assuming that I had . . .), it would be as thought it had not occurred. For if there subsisted a satisfaction, as small as I can imagine it to be, it would distance me as much from the extreme limit. I cannot for a moment cease to incite myself to attain the extreme limit, and cannot make a distinction between myself and those with whom I desire to communicate.
~George Bataille, "Inner Experience" pg. 42”
―
~George Bataille, "Inner Experience" pg. 42”
―
“The chaos of the mind cannot constitute a reply to the providence of the universe. All it can be is an awakening in the night, where all that can be heard is anguished poetry let loose.”
― Literature and Evil
― Literature and Evil
Ben’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Ben’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
More friends…
Polls voted on by Ben
Lists liked by Ben













