“It is the bliss of childhood that we are being warped most when we know it the least.”
― The Recognitions
― The Recognitions
“The Mona Lisa, the Mona Lisa....Leonardo had eye trouble....Art couldn't explain it....But now we're safe, since science can explain it. Maybe Milton wrote Paradise Lost because he was blind? And Beethoven wrote the Ninth Symphony because he was deaf...”
― The Recognitions
― The Recognitions
“Most people are clever because they don't know how to be honest." William Gaddis, The Recognitions.”
― The Recognitions
― The Recognitions
“-I'm reviewing it, the stooped man said, and started to plod off.
-You read it?
-No, he said over his shoulder, -but I know the son of a bitch who wrote it.”
― The Recognitions
-You read it?
-No, he said over his shoulder, -but I know the son of a bitch who wrote it.”
― The Recognitions
“The absence of suffering, the satisfaction of one's needs and consequent freedom in the choice of one's occupation, that is, of one's way of life, now seemed to Pierre to be indubitably man's highest happiness. Here and now for the first time he fully appreciated the enjoyment of eating when he wanted to eat, drinking when he wanted to drink, sleeping when he wanted to sleep, of warmth when he was cold, of talking to a fellow man when he wished to talk and to hear a human voice. The satisfaction of one's needs—good food, cleanliness, and freedom—now that he was deprived of all this, seemed to Pierre to constitute perfect happiness”
― War and Peace
― War and Peace
Brett’s 2025 Year in Books
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