“Today the great divide is not between left and right. It’s between democracy and oligarchy.”
“The way to overcome oligarchy is for the rest of us to “Today the great divide is not between left and right. It’s between democracy and oligarchy.”
“The way to overcome oligarchy is for the rest of us to join together and win America back. This will require a multiracial, multiethnic coalition of working-class, poor, and middle-class Americans fighting for democracy and against concentrated power and privilege, determined to rid politics of big money, end corporate welfare and crony capitalism, bust up monopolies, stop voter suppression, and strengthen the countervailing power of labor unions, employee-owned corporations, worker cooperatives, state and local banks, and grassroots politics. This agenda is neither right nor left. It is the bedrock for everything else America must do.” ...more
I really enjoyed C.J. Tudor's *Other People* and had high hopes for this one.
Nope. Found it to be such a let down and lots of meh. Felt like a mish-maI really enjoyed C.J. Tudor's *Other People* and had high hopes for this one.
Nope. Found it to be such a let down and lots of meh. Felt like a mish-mash of so many different Stephen King stories—almost like a human version of Pet Sematary.
“People say time is a great healer. They're wrong. Time is simply a great eraser. It rolls on and on regardless, eroding our memories, chipping away at those great big boulders of misery until there's nothing left but sharp little fragments, still painful but small enough to bear. Broken hearts don’t mend. Time just takes the pieces and grinds them to dust.”
“The past isn't real. It's just a story we tell ourselves, and sometimes we lie.”
“You might not be able to judge a book by it's cover, but you can certainly judge the person who owns the book.”...more
My 4th Riley Sager book — they all fairly average, but also, pretty entertaining.
Almost like comfort "horror" in these trying times.
“Every house has My 4th Riley Sager book — they all fairly average, but also, pretty entertaining.
Almost like comfort "horror" in these trying times.
“Every house has a story. Ours is a ghost story. It’s also a lie. And now that yet another person has died within these walls, it’s finally time to tell the truth.”...more
Good reminder of the basic fundamentals of time management.
“The people who get nothing done often work a great deal harder. In the first place, they uGood reminder of the basic fundamentals of time management.
“The people who get nothing done often work a great deal harder. In the first place, they underestimate the time for any one task. They always expect that everything will go right. Yet, as every executive knows, nothing ever goes right. The unexpected always happens—the unexpected is indeed the only thing one can confidently expect.”
“If there is any one 'secret' of effectiveness, it is concentration. Effective executives do first things first and they do one thing at a time.”
“The oft-repeated quip, 'I’m sorry to write you a long letter, as I did not have time to write a short one,' could be applied to meetings: 'I’m sorry to imprison you in this long meeting, as I did not have time to prepare a short one.'”
"Effectiveness is not a 'subject,' but a self-discipline."
Read some of these poems over and over and over. They made my heart ache so powerfully. Will revisit again and again.
And the rooftops are falling aparRead some of these poems over and over and over. They made my heart ache so powerfully. Will revisit again and again.
And the rooftops are falling apart like the applause
of rough, long-nailed, intimate, roughened-by-kisses, hands. Fingers more breathless than a tongue laid upon the lips in the hour of sunlight, early morning, before the mist rolls in from the sea; and out there everything is turbulent and green....more
“Semantics is about the relation of words to thoughts, but it also about the relation of words to other human concerns. A loquacious look at language.
“Semantics is about the relation of words to thoughts, but it also about the relation of words to other human concerns. Semantics is about the relation of words to reality—the way that speakers commit themselves to a shared understanding of the truth, and the way their thoughts are anchored to things and situations in the world.”
“If adults commit adultery, do infants commit infantry? If olive oil is made from olives, what do they make baby oil from? I a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian consume? A writer is someone who writes, and a stinger is something that stings. But fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce, hammers don't ham, humdingers don't humding, ushers don't ush, and haberdashers do not haberdash...If the plural of tooth is teeth, shouldn't the plural of booth be beeth? One goose, two geese-so one moose, two meese? If people ring a bell today and rang a bell yesterday, why don't we say that they flang a ball? If they wrote a letter, perhaps they also bote their tongue.”
Interesting at points—though not as quite as I'd hoped—and periodically a total slog....more
So fun! Quick, snappy thriller with a couple twists.
“My name is not Tobias. I use that name only when I want someone to remember me. In this case, theSo fun! Quick, snappy thriller with a couple twists.
“My name is not Tobias. I use that name only when I want someone to remember me. In this case, the bartender. I introduced myself and typed out my name when I first walked in and ordered a drink. He will remember me. He will remember that Tobias is the deaf man who left the bar with a woman he just met. The name was for his benefit, not Petra’s. She will remember me anyway, because how many deaf guys could she have slept with?”...more
“We can destroy what we have written, but we cannot unwrite it.”
“Oh it was gorgeousness and gorgeosity made flesh. The trombones crunched redgold unde“We can destroy what we have written, but we cannot unwrite it.”
“Oh it was gorgeousness and gorgeosity made flesh. The trombones crunched redgold under my bed, and behind my gulliver the trumpets three-wise silverflamed, and there by the door the timps rolling through my guts and out again crunched like candy thunder. Oh, it was wonder of wonders. And then, a bird of like rarest spun heavenmetal, or like silvery wine flowing in a spaceship, gravity all nonsense now, came the violin solo above all the other strings, and those strings were like a cage of silk round my bed. Then flute and oboe bored, like worms of like platinum, into the thick thick toffee gold and silver. I was in such bliss, my brothers.”
Looking forward to watching the Kubrick adaptation. ...more
Mixed feelings on this one, definitely ran the gamut for me. At times, I was confused, bored, disinterested, and at others, intrigued, curious, and suMixed feelings on this one, definitely ran the gamut for me. At times, I was confused, bored, disinterested, and at others, intrigued, curious, and surprised.
As I am currently working on the final chapter of my first ghostwritten book, this sentence struck me to the core, 100%:
“Anyone who has ever tried to write a novel knows what an arduous task it is, undoubtedly one of the worst ways of occupying oneself. You have to remain within yourself all the time, in solitary confinement. It's a controlled psychosis, an obsessive paranoia manacled to work completely lacking in the feather pens and bustles and Venetian masks we would ordinarily associate with it, clothed instead in a butcher's apron and rubber boots, eviscerating knife in hand. You can only barely see from that writerly cellar the feet of passers-by, hear the rapping of their heels. Every so often someone stops and bends down and glances in through the window, and then you get a glimpse of a human face, maybe even exchange a few words. But ultimately the mind is so occupied with its own act, a play staged by the self ofr the self in a hasty, makeshift cabinet of curiosities peopled by author and character, narrator and reader, the person describing and the person described, that feet, shoes, heels, and faces become, sooner or later, mere components of that act.”
Quite possibly, my first experience reading a book by a Polish author. Looking forward to more....more
Apparently, we have learned absolutely nothing from history.
“Influenza killed more people in a year than the Black Death of the Middle Ages killed in Apparently, we have learned absolutely nothing from history.
“Influenza killed more people in a year than the Black Death of the Middle Ages killed in a century; it killed more people in twenty-four weeks than AIDS has killed in twenty-four years.”
"Society cannot function if it is every man for himself. By definition, civilization cannot survive that. Those in authority must retain the public’s trust. The way to do that is to distort nothing, to put the best face on nothing, to try to manipulate no one."
“As terrifying the disease was, the press made it more so. They terrified by making little of it, for what officials and the press said bore no relationship to what people saw and touched and smelled and endured. People could not trust what they read. Uncertainty follows distrust, fear follow uncertainty, and, under conditions such as these, terror follows fear.”...more
The second book in Morris' trilogy—looking forward to the final chapter!
“To live, for him, has no meaning other than to drive oneself, to act with allThe second book in Morris' trilogy—looking forward to the final chapter!
“To live, for him, has no meaning other than to drive oneself, to act with all one’s strength. An existence without stress, without struggle, without growth has always struck him as mindless. Those who remain on the sidelines he sees as cowards, and consequently his personal enemies.”
“Sooner or later, unless there is a readjustment, there will come a riotous, wicked, murderous day of atonement.”...more
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