the pillowman by martin mcdonagh
23 – (Tupolski) I am a high-ranking police officer in a totalitarian fucking dictatorship. What are you doing taking my word about anything?
30 – (Tupolski) We like executing writers. Dimwits we can execute any day. And we do. But, you execute a writer, it sends out a signal, y’know?
63 – (Michal) Do you think they have sleeping in Heaven? They bloody better, else I’m not going.
65 – (Katurian) ‘Oh please God, please don’t let them make me like all the rest. I’m happy in being a little bit peculiar.’
what i talk about when i talk about running by haruki murakami
vi – If you don’t keep repeating a mantra of some sort to yourself, you’ll never survive.
vii – Here it is: Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.
5 – I stop every day right at the point where I can feel I can write more. Do that, and the next day’s work goes surprisingly smoothly.
10 – What’s crucial is whether your writing attains the standard you’ve set for yourself.
10 – Basically a writer has a quiet, inner motivation, and doesn’t seek validation in the outwardly visible.
10 – I’m at an ordinary—or perhaps more like mediocre—level. But that’s not the point. The point is whether or not I improved over yesterday.
19 – So the fact that I’m me and no one else is one of my greatest assets.
be dazzled dear readers
every once in a while, i like to dazzle my readers with amazingly useful facts such as this:
“The busiest day of the week for visits to adult websites is Friday, the least busiest is on Sunday.”
at the gym
it takes a can’t-leave-handphone-alone woman treading at effort level 5 at the gym to make me appreciate the noiseless effortful people i run with most other days.
parasite single
According to sociologist Masahiro Yamada, who coined the term “parasite single”, 60 per cent of single Japanese men and 80 per cent of women still live at home and unmarried into their early thirties, one of the highest rates in the world. Yamada says there are 10 million “parasite singles” of both sexes in Japan.
what to do when there are too many options
Allow me to summarize and add unto the Seth’s advice:
when you’re unsure on which direction to take, don’t waste time waiting for the “correct” answer to come. instead pick a direction that:
- is remarkable because others aren’t doing it,
- allows you to use your strengths,
- is honest and
- makes you happy
and just do it.
be patient and do it with lots of pride, joy and confidence.
wow.
Randy Pausch
It is an accepted cliche in education that the number one goal of teachers should be to help students learn how to learn.
I always saw the value in that, sure. But in my mind, a better number one goal was this: I want to help students learn how to judge themselves.
Did they recognize their true abilities? Did they have a sense of their own flaws? Were they realistic about how others view them?
In the end, educators best serve students by helping them be more self-reflective.
Albert Einstein
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.
the simple daily struggle not to abandon thought and passion
they (Burmese activists) began to think about changing their country in a more indirect way, beginning with their own lives—with the simple daily struggle not to abandon thought and passion, even in the face of a government that tried to smother its people. That struggle took many forms, some as apparently banal as producing a play or working to help poor children.
The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs
25 – In Judaism, the biblical laws that come without explanation—and there are many—are called chukim.
29 – Every time I read a book, it’ll mention three other books I feel I have to read. It’s like a particular relentless series of pop-up ads.
51 – Jewish men still steer clear of their wives during menstruation. But they cite a different motivation: Touching might lead to sex, and sex during that time of the month—temple or no temple—is forbidden by another law, Leviticus 20:18.
i think he’s right
My favourite vicar, the Reverend Gavin Ashenden of Sussex University, never says, “I am a Christian,” but rather “I’m trying to be a Christian”.
how to deal with library morons
One librarian suggested adopting the ancient practice of some monasteries, in which monks who offended in the handling of books were publicly cursed. Another pointed to Soviet Russia, where they said that offenders’ names were published in newspapers to shame them into returning their books. In New Zealand town Palmerston North next week, library users returning late books are being challenged to beat librarians on Guitar Hero to have their fines waived.
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky (part 2)
289 – And I shall also tell you, dear mother, that each of us is guilty in everything before everyone, and I most of all.
290 – But from a very bad family, too, one can keep precious memories, if only one’s soul knows how to seek out what is precious.
303 – Paradise… is hidden in each one of us, it is concealed within me, too, right now, and if I wish, it will come for me in reality, tomorrow even, and for the rest of my life.
313 – You have needs, therefore satisfy them, for you have the same rights as the noblest and richest men. Do not be afraid to satisfy them, but even increase them—this is the current teaching of the world. And in this they see freedom. But what comes of this right to increase one’s needs? For the rich, isolation and spirtual suicide; for the poor, envy and murder, for they have been given rights, but have not yet been shown any way of satisfying their needs.
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky (part 1)
9 – In most cases, people, even wicked people, are far more naive and simple-hearted than one generally assumes. And so are we.
28 – … and avoid the lot of those who live their whole lives without finding themselves in themselves.
43 – … do not be so ashamed of yourself, for that is the cause of everything.
44 – A man who lies to himself is often the first to take offense.
44 – It sometimes feels very good to take offense, doesn’t it?
Mike Phelps’ 12,000 calories diet
For breakfast: three fried egg sandwiches, with cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, fried onions and mayonnaise, followed by three chocolate-chip pancakes; a five-egg omelette; three sugar-coated slices of French toast and a bowl of grits (a maize-based porridge), washed down with two cups of coffee.
For lunch: half a kilogramme (one pound) of enriched pasta; two large ham and cheese sandwiches on white bread smothered with mayonnaise, washed down by energy drinks.
For dinner: Another half-kilogramme of pasta, perhaps with a carbonara sauce, followed by a large pizza and more energy drinks.
laugh along with effortless jo – part 2
You are destined to reign in life.
You are called to be a success, to enjoy wealth, to enjoy health and to enjoy a life of victory…
He has called you to be the head and not the tail – Destined to Reign, Joseph Prince
some reasoned that because God wants the best for you, and since success and riches are really great, God wants you to be rich and successful.
by the same reasoning, because God wants the best for you, and since women in Victoria’s Secret intimate wear are really awesome, God wants you to have women who wear Victoria’s Secret panties.
not a piece of cake
Psychology Today (via aldaily.com):
At one top Beijing kindergarten, students must know pi to 100 digits by age 3.
Mahmoud Darwish (1941 – 2008)
I thought poetry could change everything, could change history and could humanize, and I think that the illusion is very necessary to push poets to be involved and to believe, but now I think that poetry changes only the poet.
less innocent
Bernardo Bertolucci to Abbas Kiarostami:
The richer people got, the less innocent they were in their relationship to art.
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