Dimitris > Recent Status Updates

Ήταν πεπεισμένος ότι ο πατέρας του τον μισούσε από την πρώτη στιγμή που ήρθε στον κόσμο, επειδή είχε προκαλέσει το θάνατο της μητέρας μας. Ο πατέρας δεν θα μπορούσε ποτέ να έχει συνειδητά μια τόσο μικρόψυχη στάση απέναντί του. Όταν όμως ένα παιδί νιώθει από τα γεννοφάσκια του πως δεν αγαπιέται, δεν κάνει ποτέ εντελώς λάθος.

Όσο μεγαλώνω, τόσο δικαιώνω σ' όλα τα πράγματα τον πατέρα μου, αυτό συμβαίνει μ' όλους τους ανθρώπους, υποθέτω. Σιγά σιγά, οι δικές μου παραξενιές ταυτίζονται με τις δικές του. Από αταβισμό ή από τύψεις.

Η Αυτοκρατορία μας ψυχορραγούσε μες στην ντροπή. Και από τα ερείπιά της ξεφύτρωνε ένα πλήθος από χώρες-εκτρώματα. Ο καθένας παρακαλούσε το θεό του να σωπάσουν οι προσευχές των άλλων.

Η ιδέα και μόνο να βγει πάλι στους απειλητικούς δρόμους της αρμένικης συνοικίας του ήταν ανυπόφορη. Είχε γεννηθεί σ' αυτή την πόλη, το μέλλον όμως δεν κατοικεί ανάμεσα στους τοίχους του παρελθόντος.

«Είστε σίγουρος πως η ζωή ενός ανθρώπου αρχίζει με τη γέννησή του;» [...]
Η ζωή μου άρχισε, είπε, μισόν αιώνα πριν γεννηθώ, σ' ένα δωμάτιο που δεν το επισκέφθηκα ποτέ μου, στις ακτές του Βοσπόρου. Συνέβη μια τραγωδία, αντήχησε μια κραυγή, ένα κύμα τρέλας απλώθηκε παντού και δεν θα σταματούσε πια. Έτσι, με το που ήρθα στον κόσμο, η ζωή μου είχε ήδη αρχίσει για τα καλά.

Η συνάντησή του μ' εμένα του πρόσφερε μια διαφυγή ακόμα πιο αποτελεσματική. Θα τον μονοπωλούσα συνέχεια αυτές τις μέρες της αναμονής, θα τον ταρακουνούσα, θα τον κέντριζα, θα τον πολιορκούσα, θα τον ανάγκαζα να ζήσει ώρα προς ώρα το παρελθόν του, αντί να τον αφήσω να μηρυκάζει το μέλλον του.

...λάτρευε τον εαυτό του, και γι' αυτόν πειστικό ήταν μόνον ό,τι έλεγε ο ίδιος.

Herein lies what seems to be a usable, lightweight, creative task management system. The first part of the book deals with managing urgency and sets the stage for what is to follow. Hopefully Linenberger will have insightful comments on managing priority (& how it relates to urgency) otherwise the book will be missing the point badly.
His bashing of due dates is refreshing & has been implemented duly in my toodledo.

What a true saying it is that he who wants to deceive mankind must before all things make absurdity plausible.

An active scepticism is one which constantly aims at overcoming itself, and arriving by means of regulated experience at a kind of conditioned certainty.

Men are even more susceptible to suggestion than horses, and each period is dominated by a mood, with the result that most men fail to see the tyrant who rules over them.

I'm just trying to show you that you've lived half your life, but for all you've got to show for it you might as well be nineteen, and I'm not talking about money or property or furniture.'

And all the time you're keeping your options open, you're closing them off. You're thirty-six.

'Everything's too hard. Maybe another time I would have had the guts to be on my own, but not now I haven't.'

'It's no wonder we're all in such a mess, is it? We're like Tom Hanks in Big. Little boys and girls trapped in adult bodies and forced to get on with it. And it's much worse in a real life, because it's not just snogging and bunk beds, is it? There's all this as well.' She gestures through the windscreen at the field and the bus stop and a man walking his dog, but I know what she means.

It must be hard for parents, I guess, when they see that things aren't working out for their children, but that their children can no longer be reached by the old parental routes, because those roads are now much too long.

Where's the superficial? I was, and therefore am, dim, gloomy, a drag, unfashionable, unfanciable, and awkward. This doesn't seem like superficial to me. These aren't flesh wounds. These are life-threatening thrusts into the internal organs.

My dad is a bit dim but something of a know-all, which is a pretty fatal combination; you can tell from his silly, fussy beard that he's going to be the sort who doesn't talk much sense and won't listen to any reason. My mum is just a mum, which is an unforgivable thing to say in any circumstance,

I tell her that I think she's beautiful, which I sort of do, and talented, which I definitely do. And we talk like this for a while, congratulating ourselves on our good fortune and each other for our good taste, which is the way these post-kiss pre-sex conversations always go, in my experience;

It feels, even to me, like I'm being intimate: I speak quietly, slowly, thoughtfully, I express regret, I say nice things about Laura, I hint at a deep ocean of melancholy just below the surface. But it's all bollocks, really, a cartoon sketch of a decent, sensitive guy which does the trick because I am in a position to invent my own reality and because — I think — Marie has already decided she likes me.

The evening goes with that sort of breathtaking joke precision, where you can kind of see what's supposed to happen but you can't believe it's ever going to get there, even though afterwards it seems obvious.

I'm really up after the triumph with Laura, and seeing as Marie has only ever seen me tongue-tied and grumpy, she must wonder what has happened. Let her wonder. It's not often that I get the chance to be enigmatic and perplexing.

Justice insists on obligation, law on decorum. Justice weighs and decides, law superintends and orders. Justice refers to the individual, law to society.

In Botany there is a species of plants called Incompletæ; and just in the same way it can be said that there are men who are incomplete and imperfect. They are those whose desires and struggles are out of proportion to their actions and achievements.

It is not always needful for truth to take a definite shape; it is enough if it hovers about us like a spirit and produces harmony; if it is wafted through the air like the sound of a bell, grave and kindly.

Our plans and designs should be so perfect in truth and beauty, that in touching them the world could only mar. We should thus have the advantage of setting right what is wrong, and restoring what is destroyed.