Jim Bilbro

“I often ask myself whether my decision to pursue a life of scholarship -- if decision is the right word -- was a result of an essential poverty of the soul, or if the desiccation which I sometimes suspect is the one truly distinguishing mark of my scholarship was an inevitable consequence of that decision.”
― John Banville, The Untouchable

“Do not rejoice when you have found, do not weep when you have lost.”
― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

“You're a cis-het dude-bro on strike for better conditions.”
― Nell Zink, Nicotine

“L. Kopelev came back to Moscow in 1955 and made a discovery: 'I am I'll-at-ease with successful people! I keep up acquaintance only with those of my friends who are in some way unlucky.' But, then, only those who decline to scramble up the career ladder are interesting as human beings. Nothing is more boring than a man with a career.”
― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, Books V-VII