A.J. Howard

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The Promise
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Saul Bellow
“We never learn anything, never in the world, and in spite of all the history books written. They’re just the way we plead or ague with ourselves about it, but it’s only light from the outside that we’re supposed to take inside. If we can. There’s a regular warehouse of fine suggestions and if we’re not better it isn’t because there aren’t plenty of marvelous and true ideas to draw on, but because our vanity weighs more than all of them put together.”
Saul Bellow, The Adventures of Augie March

Bob Dylan
“Build me a cabin in Utah
Marry me a wife, catch rainbow trout
Have a bunch of kids who call me “Pa”
That must be what it’s all about
That must be what it’s all about”
Bob Dylan, Lyrics, 1962-2001

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
“For I say to you in all the sadness of conviction, that to think great thoughts you must be heroes as well as idealists. Only when you have worked alone – when you have felt around you a black gulf of solitude more isolating than that which surrounds the dying man, and in hope and in despair have trusted to your own unshaken will – then only will you have achieved. Thus only can you gain the secret isolated joy of the thinker, who knows that, a hundred years after he is dead and forgotten, men who have never heard of him will be moving to the measure of his thought – the subtle rapture of a postponed power, which the world knows not because it has no external trappings, but which to his prophetic vision is more real than that which commands an army.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Christopher Hitchens
“It’s quite a task to combat the absolutists and the relativists at the same time: to maintain that there is no totalitarian solution while also insisting that, yes, we on our side also have unalterable convictions and are willing to fight for them. After various past allegiances, I have come to believe that Karl Marx was rightist of all when he recommended continual doubt and self-criticism. Member in the skeptical faction or tendency is not at all a soft option. The defense of science and reason is the great imperative of our time… To be an unbeliever is not merely to be “open-minded.” It is, rather, a decisive admission of uncertainty that is dialectically connected to the repudiation of the totalitarian principle, in the mind as well as in politics. But that’s my Hitch-22. I have already described some of my rehearsals for this war… and for the remainder of my days I shall be happy enough to see if I can emulate the understatement of Commander Hitchens, and to say that at least I know what I am supposed to be doing.”
Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22: A Memoir

Philip Roth
“People were standing up everywhere shouting, "This is me! This is me!" Every time you looked at them they stood up and told you who they were, and the truth of it was that they had no more idea who or what they were than he had. They believed their flashing signs, too. They ought to be standing up and shouting, "This isn't me! This isn't me!" They would if they had any decency. "This isn't me!" Then you might know how to proceed through the flashing bullshit of this world.”
Philip Roth, American Pastoral

26007 Dylanists — 87 members — last activity Jul 18, 2019 04:25PM
For Bob Dylan fans interested in understanding and discussing the literary merits of his work.
43519 readers advisory for all — 5691 members — last activity Sep 13, 2025 11:35AM
life's too short to read crappy books. this is why readers' advisory exists. feel free to join if you are looking for "a book like____" or "a book tha ...more
19703 Infinite Summer — 304 members — last activity Jun 21, 2019 03:36PM
For all those planning to read Infinite Jest this summer starting June 21. Support, encouragement and gentle pushes welcome.
7198 TIME All-Time 100 Novels — 25 members — last activity Nov 30, 2011 12:37PM
For anyone trying to read the novels on this list: http://www.time.com/time/2005/100books/the_complete_list.html
8463 David Foster Wallace — 298 members — last activity Oct 15, 2016 07:21PM
A group for the amazing work of David Foster Wallace, now deceased. RIP 1962-2008 Feel free to add his books to the bookshelf for the group.
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