“A writer - and, I believe, generally all persons - must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.”
― Twenty-Four Conversations with Borges: Interviews by Roberto Alifano 1981-1983
― Twenty-Four Conversations with Borges: Interviews by Roberto Alifano 1981-1983
“I had learned that a dexterous, opposable thumb stood among the hallmarks of human success. We had maintained, even exaggerated, this important flexibility of our primate forebears, while most mammals had sacrificed it in specializing their digits. Carnivores run, stab, and scratch. My cat may manipulate me psychologically, but he'll never type or play the piano.”
― The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History
― The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History
“I...have always known that my destiny was, above all, a literary destiny — that bad things and some good things would happen to me, but that, in the long run, all of it would be converted
into words. Particularly the bad things, since happiness does not need to be transformed: happiness is its own end.”
― Seven Nights
into words. Particularly the bad things, since happiness does not need to be transformed: happiness is its own end.”
― Seven Nights
“almost nothing important that ever happens to you happens because you engineer it. Destiny has no beeper; destiny always leans trenchcoated out of an alley with some sort of 'psst' that you usually can't even hear because you're in such a rush to or from something important you've tried to engineer.”
― Infinite Jest
― Infinite Jest
Carlo’s 2024 Year in Books
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