Jim > Recent Status Updates

Henceforth let no one receive the narratives of Elia for
true records! They are, in truth, but shadows of fact-verisimilitudes,
not verities--or sitting but upon the remote edges and outskirts of
history. He is no such honest chronicler as R.N., and would have done
better perhaps to have consulted that gentleman, before he sent these
incondite reminiscences to press.

I have never made an acquaintance since, that
lasted; or a friendship, that answered; with any that had not some
tincture of the absurd in their characters. I venerate an honest
obliquity of understanding. The more laughable blunders a man shall
commit in your company, the more tests he giveth you, that he will
not betray or overreach you.

There is a class of alienators more formidable than that which I have touched upon; I mean your borrowers of books—those mutilators of collections, spoilers of the symmetry of shelves, and creators of odd volumes.

[B]eauty is that quality which, next to money, is generally the most attractive to the worst kinds of men; and, therefore, it is likely to entail a great deal of trouble on the possessor.

When letters begin again, how many other such pieces of news shall we all receive? Which of our close friends and relations are already dead, or will die before we meet them again? And, even among those who survive, what barriers of constraint and unfamiliarity will have arisen in these years—not only of physical separation, but of experience unshared, of differing feelings and opinions? What ties will survive?

What took place at the meeting between [the King and Mussolini], who were alone, is not known. What is certain is, that when Mussolini came out and looked around for his car, the officer on guard at the gate requested him instead to enter a Red Cross closed ambulance, in which he found his doctor waiting. And so he drove quietly away—from Villa Savoia and from power.

Children such as these have had to leave their own homes and families, and are arriving—bewildered but hopeful—among strangers. There is something terribly moving in this exodus—something, too, so deeply wrong in a world where such a thing is not only possible but necessary, that it is difficult not to feel personally responsible.

[Bruce Chatwin] was sent to collect a painting by Cézanne—a painting for which an export license would not have been granted; like most Cézannes, the picture was unsigned. Chatwin borrowed a collapsible easel and a paint set, He wrapped the picture up in oil-cloth and tucked it under his arm. When challenged by Customs, he declared: "Moi-même, je suis peintre."

Lu You's father was engaging in the ancient Chinese practice of choosing retirement over service to a government in which he had no confidence.

If Bruce Chatwin had been portly, myopic and mouse-haired his life and reputation would have been quite different.

All created things
are like a dream an illusion a bubble
a shadow a dewdrop or lightning
view them all like this

I didn't see the ancients before me
I don't see those yet to come
facing the endlessness of Heaven and Earth
I am so overcome I cry

And now, thanks to what's happened, you're an interesting person. You've gained experience, and had a romantic experience, like a heroine in a film. In a day or two, everybody in town will be talking about you; they'll discover that you have 'glamour,' as they call it..... You're a very lucky girl, my dear.

If there's one thing I abominate in the world today, it's a certain way of living; certain houses, and the people who entrench themselves in them, and imagine they're superior, and secure. Don't think I'm jealous of their wealth. It has nothing to do with that, I assure you.

Is it that they think it is a duty to be continually talking, and so never pause to think, but fill up with aimless trifles and vain repetitions when subjects of real interest fail to present themselves, or do they really take a pleasure in such discourse?

Methinks I see them with their bolstered hair
Staring and grinning in thy gentle face,And in their ruthless hands their daggers drawn,
Insulting o'er thee with a pack of oaths,
Whilst thou submissive, pleading for relief,
Art mangled by their ireful instruments.

It doesn't make any difference if you're a monk or a layman, as long as you're not a monk or a layman, as long as you're not troubled by desire, as long as your mind is unaffected by illusions.

"You have a serious problem, Bobby Lee."
"What's that?"
"You come to conclusions without looking at the evidence. Then you find reasons to justify your shoddy conclusions. It's like inventing a square wheel and trying to convince yourself you like your wagon to ride a little rough."

I told him to kiss my ass. When people try to make you feel guilty, it's because they want to install dials on you. It also means they're gonna sell you down the river the first chance they get.

The grass was tall and green in the lee of the trees, channeled with the wind blowing out of the south. Hackberry [Holland] squatted down and watched the deer eat, his face blanketed with shadow, his eyes like those of a man staring into a dead fire.

'But the queen is ours, right?' Bachmann had insisted anxiously.
'On the terms described, yes. If you can get Signpost to your safe flat and if you could talk to him on the lines we agreed, and if he shows signs of playing ball, he's ours. Does that answer your question?'
No it doesn't, It makes me ask why you need three ifs to say yes.

I'm a lawyer without a negotiating position, Mr Brue, which is about the most stupid, useless thing in the universe. Just don't tell me anything soothing. I am not available for ingenious schemes. We go through with this, or Issa's dead meat. This is the Save Issa Society.

I want to keep him loose and keep him walking. I want him to talk to whoever he was told to talk to and pray where he was told to pray and sleep wherever they told him to sleep.

There is but one consciousness, the Absolute Consciousness Chit, which is one of the attributes of the Self. Individual consciousness, being but a function of the temporal Ego, only reflects the light of the Self, playing it solely upon a small fact-section of the whole spectrum of life.

This feeling of a land animated by spirit forces permeated all the three barren, sun-baked, rocky mesas and their villages. It gave a depth, meaning, and richness to the lives of the economically impoverished Hops such as we materially affluent people do not experience.

It could be that this wariness of the sound ones and the true ones was one of the hidden reasons why I had to be a roamer, a salvage expert, a gregarious loner, a seeker of a thousand tarnished grails, finding too many excuses for the dragons along the way.

'Extraordinarily primitive people,' Mr Brown murmured to himself. He was thinking of that strange old woman in a shop at Nobost last week who when he had asked her if she kept toilet-paper had replied with a slightly puzzled but equally propitiatory smile, 'No, no, I'm afraid we haven't that kind of paper just now, but we have emery paper if that would do as well for you.'

No doubt the world is entirely an imaginary world, but it is only once removed from the true world.... When the time comes, I will go joyfully. Whatever may be there, it will be real, without complication, without ridicule, without deception. God be praised: there even Gimpel cannot be deceived.

You see, what nobody tells you about capitalism is that it's warlordism in disguise. That leaves the only job in the jungle worth having is apex feeder -- the rest is slavery at various level;s of discomfort.