Looney

“But now suddenly it occurs to me that by far the main protagonist of twentieth-century literature must be the chattering mind, which usually means the mind that can’t make up its mind, the mind postponing action in indecision and, if we’re lucky, poetry.”
― Tim Parks, Where I'm Reading From: The Changing World of Books

“Now, let’s imagine that we have been condemned for life to making, year in year out a burdensome and nearly impossible decision to which the world increasingly and inexplicably ascribes a crazy importance. How do we go about it? We look for some simple, rapid, and broadly acceptable criteria that will help us get this pain out of the way. And since, as Borges himself noted, aesthetics are difficult and require a special sensibility and long reflection while political affiliations are easier and quickly grasped, we begin to identify those areas of the world that have grabbed public attention, perhaps because of political turmoil or abuses of human rights; we find those authors who have already won a huge level of respect and possibly major prizes in the literary communities of these countries and who are outspokenly committed to the right side of whatever political divide we’re talking about, and we select them.”
― Tim Parks, Where I'm Reading From: The Changing World of Books

“What wonderful minds we have, even though they don’t seem to get us anywhere, or make us happy.”
― Tim Parks, Where I'm Reading From: The Changing World of Books

“When something becomes hard to think about, people transfer the discomfort of the thought to the object of their thinking. Almost”
― Derek Thompson, Hit Makers: Why Things Become Popular