Ingrid Ellis > Recent Status Updates

I always thought NASA was this cool, polished, very backed-by-science organization… and this book is giving me an uncomfortable peek behind the curtain lol

“A good novelist does not lead his characters, he follows them. A good novelist does not create events, he watches them happen and then writes down what he sees. A good novelist realizes he is a secretary, not God.”

“For readers, one of life’s most electrifying discoveries is that they are readers—not just capable of doing it, but in love with it.”

“It wasn’t the killing that stayed in his mind, it was the spilled talent. A lifetime of honing and shaping torn apart in less than a second. All those stories, all those images, and what came out looked like so much oatmeal. What was the point?”

Maybe I’ll give this another shot another day but I don’t like the letter format. Can’t keep up with any of the storylines and who’s writing what. DNF

I’m sure this book is great but the long descriptions are killing me. I’m in desperate need of a page turner, haven’t loved any of the last few I’ve read. DNF

too hard to follow, DNF. man i need a good book, I’ve had a few duds in a row.

this remind u of anyone? “drill every sentence into the masses by vulgarization and endless repetition; what was presented as right must shine like gold, what was presented as wrong must be black as pitch; political statements had to be colored like gingerbread figures at a fair.”

recurring themes: does dignity come from resistance or acceptance? when it comes to sacrificing human lives, do ends justify the means? not related but it makes me think of the WWII torture that led to modern medicine advancements. worth it?

“This sudden revulsion against experimenting is rather naive. Every year several million people are killed quite pointlessly by epidemics and other natural catastrophes. And we would shrink from sacrificing a few hundred thousand for the most promising experiment in history?”

“History has taught us that often lies serve her better than the truth; for man is sluggish and has to be led through the desert for 40 years before each step in his development. And he has to be driven through the desert with threats and promises, by imaginary terrors and imaginary consolations, so that he should not sit down prematurely to rest and divert himself by worshiping golden calves.”

i always feel like such a lil bitch when I can’t get through a book as highly rated as this one. it’s way too long and i can’t focus on it. will have to find a podcast or doc about robert moses instead. DNF

The horror which No. 1 ruminated, above all consisted in the possibility that he was in the right … There was no certainty, only the appeal to that mocking oracle they called History, who gave her sentence only when the jaws of the appealed had long since fallen to dust.

“Some states were slow to throw out their endogamy laws. Alabama, the last state to do so, didn’t throw out its law against intermarriage until the year 2000. Even then, 40% of the referendum voted in favor of keeping the marriage ban on the books.” bro I was ALIVE then

“the one drop rule was too harsh for the nazis”

race does not exist — all human beings are 99.9% the same

everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise

“it's better to sail with a moody good captain than a laughing bad one”

there are no “black” people in africa

the country cannot become whole until it confronts what was not a chapter in its history, but the basis of its economic and social order.

People in Nantucket invest their money in whaling vessels, the same way that you do yours in approved state stocks bringing in good interest.

Schizophrenia affects an estimated one in one hundred people… that feels like a lot. Also one out of every 20 cases ends in suicide.

“Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more. But if, like Queequeg and me in the bed, the tip of your nose or the crown of your head be slightly chilled, why then, indeed, in the general consciousness you feel most delightfully and unmistakably warm.”

Ishmael contemplates whether he should join Queepeg in worshiping the idol, even though he is a Christian. I like his reasoning: “But what is worship?—to do the will of God—that is worship. And what is the will of God?—to do to my fellow man what I would have my fellow man to do to me—that is the will of God.”

“Red or white?”
“Either.”

God this woman is the most passive person on the planet and I LOVE IT because it makes her so real compared to so many other book characters. This book is my “hear me out” lmao all the characters suck and I love it

“In the American South, there are hundreds of civil war battle monuments and preserved plantation manor houses for every exhibit that in any way marks the existence of slavery. … And yet the world we live in … is shaped far less by what we celebrate and mythologize than by the painful events we trying to forget.”

“It is always temping to believe that a bad system is the fault of one bad man.”

From poet Vachel Lindsay:
“Listen to the yell of Leopold’s ghost,
Burning in Hell for his hand-maimed host.
Hear how the demons chuckle and yell
Cutting his hands off, down in Hell.”

“What would you write about if you knew you might die soon?”

“As they fled these expeditions, villagers sometimes abandoned small children for fear that their cries would give away their hiding places. As a result, many children starved.” 😭😭😭