Hall of the Revels

My mother sent this to me this morning. Unlike the Jonathan Franzen piece, I can't summarize. It's short. Just read it. It's great.

Helpful Quotes

I may have acted like a soft dolt, the very archetype of a flabby Western liberal but I'd rather be my kind of fool than his. --George Smiley
Hector: The best moments in writing are when you come across something—a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things—which you had thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours. --Alan Bennett, "The History Boys"
There are fickle inexplicable changes which occur in us: for example I first of all found that radishes agreed with me; then they did not; now they do again. --Montaigne, "On Experience"
The only obligation which I have the right to assume, is to do at any time what I think right. --Henry David Thoreau
Angel: [The Virgin Mary] never got over not having grandchildren. I say to her, well, look on the bright side. What about Gothic architecture? With two thousand years of Christianity to your credit what are grandchildren? But, as she said to me in a moment of confidence, "You can't knit booties for the Nicene Creed." --Alan Bennett

Friday, April 22, 2011