“Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re really in favor of free speech, then you’re in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favor of free speech.”
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“The greatest terror a child can have is that he is not loved, and rejection is the hell he fears. I think everyone in the world to a large or small extent has felt rejection. And with rejection comes anger, and with anger some kind of crime in revenge for the rejection, and with the crime guilt—and there is the story of mankind. I think that if rejection could be amputated, the human would not be what he is.”
― East of Eden
― East of Eden
“I learned early on that war forms its own culture. The rush of battle is a potent and often lethal addiction, for war is a drug, one I ingested for many years. It is peddled by mythmakers- historians, war correspondents, filmmakers, novelists, and the state- all of whom endow it with qualities it often does possess: excitement, exoticism, power, chances to rise above our small stations in life, and a bizarre and fantastic universe that has a grotesque and dark beauty.”
― War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning
― War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning
“American women expect to find in their husbands a perfection that English women only hope to find in their butlers.”
― The Razor’s Edge
― The Razor’s Edge
“All my means are sane, my motive and my object mad.”
― Moby-Dick or, The Whale
― Moby-Dick or, The Whale
Mason’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Mason’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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