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“A good movie can take you out of your dull funk and the hopelessness that so often goes with slipping into a theatre; a good movie can make you feel alive again, in contact, not just lost in another city. Good movies make you care, make you believe in possibilities again. If somewhere in the Hollywood-entertainment world someone has managed to break through with something that speaks to you, then it isn’t all corruption. The movie doesn’t have to be great; it can be stupid and empty and you can still have the joy of a good performance, or the joy in just a good line. An actor’s scowl, a small subversive gesture, a dirty remark that someone tosses off with a mock-innocent face, and the world makes a little bit of sense. Sitting there alone or painfully alone because those with you do not react as you do, you know there must be others perhaps in this very theatre or in this city, surely in other theatres in other cities, now, in the past or future, who react as you do. And because movies are the most total and encompassing art form we have, these reactions can seem the most personal and, maybe the most important, imaginable. The romance of movies is not just in those stories and those people on the screen but in the adolescent dream of meeting others who feel as you do about what you’ve seen. You do meet them, of course, and you know each other at once because you talk less about good movies than about what you love in bad movies.”
― For Keeps: 30 Years at the Movies
― For Keeps: 30 Years at the Movies
“He gave her a bright fake smile; so much of life was a putting off of unhappiness for another time. Nothing was ever lost by delay. He had a dim idea that perhaps if one delayed long enough, things were taken out of one's hands altogether by death.”
― The Heart of the Matter
― The Heart of the Matter
“Stilletos of a frozen stillicide [...] In the lovely line heading this comment the reader should note the last word. My dictionary defines it as 'a succession of drops falling from the eaves, eavesdrop, cavesdrop.' I remember having encountered it for the first time in a poem by Thomas Hardy. The bright frost has eternalized the bright eavesdrop.”
― Pale Fire
― Pale Fire
“Remember that there is only one important time and it is Now. The present moment is the only time over which we have dominion. The most important person is always the person with whom you are, who is right before you, for who knows if you will have dealings with any other person in the future? The most important pursuit is making that person, the one standing at your side, happy, for that alone is the pursuit of life.”
― The Emperor's Three Questions
― The Emperor's Three Questions
“They can print statistics and count the populations in hundreds of thousands, but to each man a city consists of no more than a few streets, a few houses, a few people. Remove those few and a city exists no longer except as a pain in the memory, like a pain of an amputated leg no longer there.”
― Our Man in Havana
― Our Man in Havana
Brain Science Podcast
— 889 members
— last activity Dec 25, 2021 06:44AM
This is a discussion forum for fans of the Brain Science Podcast. The Brain Science Podcast is "for everyone who has a brain;" which hopefully include ...more
The Dusty Bookshelf
— 810 members
— last activity Oct 16, 2018 08:15AM
A group to motivate you to read all those books that have been sitting on your shelf for years and collecting dust. Plus you can discuss your books wi ...more
PAUK Book club
— 18 members
— last activity Apr 06, 2024 02:11AM
We are an in-person book club that has been meeting once a month in Central London since 2012. If you wish to receive announcements, please subscribe ...more
The Interintellect
— 40 members
— last activity Nov 16, 2020 09:50AM
Goodreads group for members of the Interintellect.
Bryan’s 2025 Year in Books
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