Ian Finlay

Add friend
Sign in to Goodreads to learn more about Ian.


Confessions
Ian Finlay is currently reading
bookshelves: currently-reading
Rate this book
Clear rating

 
Kristin Lavransda...
Ian Finlay is currently reading
bookshelves: currently-reading
Rate this book
Clear rating

 
You, Me, and Ulys...
Rate this book
Clear rating

 
See all 5 books that Ian is reading…
Loading...
Robert Penn Warren
“The Friend of Your Youth is the only friend you will ever have, for he does not really see you. He sees in his mind a face that does not exist anymore, speaks a name – Spike, Bud, Snip, Red, Rusty, Jack, Dave – which belongs to that now nonexistent face but which by some inane doddering confusion of the universe is for the moment attached to a not happily met and boring stranger. But he humors the drooling doddering confusion of the universe and continues to address politely that dull stranger by the name which properly belongs to the boy face and to the time when the boy voice called thinly across the late afternoon water or murmured by a campfire at night or in the middle of a crowded street said, “Gee, listen to this–’On Wenlock Edge the wood’s in trouble; His forest fleece the Wrekin heaves–’” The Friend of Your Youth is your friend because he does not see you anymore.

And perhaps he never saw you. What he saw was simply part of the furniture of the wonderful opening world. Friendship was something he suddenly discovered and had to give away as a recognition of and payment for the breathlessly opening world which momently divulged itself like a moonflower. It didn’t matter a damn to whom he gave it, for the fact of giving was what mattered, and if you happened to be handy you were automatically endowed with all the appropriate attributes of a friend and forever after your reality is irrelevant. The Friend of Your Youth is the only friend you will ever have, for he hasn’t the slightest concern with calculating his interest or your virtue. He doesn’t give a damn, for the moment, about Getting Ahead or Needs Must Admiring the Best, the two official criteria in adult friendships, and when the boring stranger appears, he puts out his hand and smiles (not really seeing your face) and speaks your name (which doesn’t really belong to your face), saying, “Well, Jack, damned glad you came, come on in, boy!”
Robert Penn Warren, All the King's Men

Thomas Pynchon
“Easy. They just let us forget. Give us too much to process, fill up every minute, keep us distracted, it's what the Tube is for, and though it kills me to say it, it's what rock and roll is becoming - just another way to claim our attention, so that beautiful certainty we had starts to fade, and after a while they have us convinced all over again that we really are going to die. And they've got us again.”
Thomas Pynchon, Vineland

Halldór Laxness
“The most remarkable thing about a man's dreams is that they will all come true; this has always been the case, though no one would care to admit it. And a peculiarity of man's behaviour is that he is not in the least surprised when his dreams come true; it is as if he expected nothing else. The goal to be reached and the determination to reach it are brother and sister, and slumber in the same heart.”
Halldór Laxness, Independent People
tags: dreams

Cormac McCarthy
“That was in nineteen and thirty-one and if I live to be a hunnerd year old I don't think I'll ever see anything as pretty as that train on fire goin up that mountain and around that bend and then flames lightin up the snow and the trees and the night.”
Cormac McCarthy, Suttree

Halldór Laxness
“He did not know what to say in the face of such sorrow. He sat in silence by his sister's side in the spring verdure, which was too young; and the hidden strings of his breast began to quiver, and to sound. This was the first time that he had ever looked into the labyrinth of the human soul. He was very far from understanding what he saw. But what was of more value, he felt and suffered with her. In years that were yet to come he relived this memory in song, in the most beautiful song the world has ever known. For the understanding of the soul's defenselessness, of the conflict between the two poles, is not the source of the greatest song. The source of the greatest song is sympathy. Sympathy with Asta Sollilja on earth.”
Halldor Laxness, Independent People

60139 Huntsville-Madison County Public Library — 1172 members — last activity Jan 29, 2026 11:26AM
See what our staff is reading, what's new at HMCPL, and discuss your literary picks and pans. ...more
year in books
Jessica...
541 books | 52 friends

Kathy
1,747 books | 49 friends

Dillon ...
250 books | 52 friends

Victori...
376 books | 36 friends

Chloe
1,659 books | 115 friends

Molly M...
580 books | 66 friends

Mike
158 books | 33 friends

Puja Desai
186 books | 110 friends

More friends…
Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Aviation Books
396 books — 180 voters




Polls voted on by Ian

Lists liked by Ian