Caleb > Caleb's Quotes

“My hobby is extreme Catholic behavior -- BEFORE the Reformation.”
― John Waters

“You can never be overdressed or overeducated.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Good. Item seven. The had had and that that problem. Lady Cavendish, weren’t you working on this?’

Lady Cavendish stood up and gathered her thoughts. ‘Indeed. The uses of had had and that that have to be strictly controlled; they can interrupt the imaginotransference quite dramatically, causing readers to go back over the sentence in confusion, something we try to avoid.’

‘Go on.’

‘It’s mostly an unlicensed-usage problem. At the last count David Copperfield alone had had had had sixty three times, all but ten unapproved. Pilgrim’s Progress may also be a problem due to its had had/that that ratio.’

‘So what’s the problem in Progress?’

‘That that had that that ten times but had had had had only thrice. Increased had had usage had had to be overlooked, but not if the number exceeds that that that usage.’

‘Hmm,’ said the Bellman, ‘I thought had had had had TGC’s approval for use in Dickens? What’s the problem?’

‘Take the first had had and that that in the book by way of example,’ said Lady Cavendish. ‘You would have thought that that first had had had had good occasion to be seen as had, had you not? Had had had approval but had had had not; equally it is true to say that that that that had had approval but that that other that that had not.’

‘So the problem with that other that that was that…?’

‘That that other-other that that had had approval.’

‘Okay’ said the Bellman, whose head was in danger of falling apart like a chocolate orange, ‘let me get this straight: David Copperfield, unlike Pilgrim’s Progress, had had had, had had had had. Had had had had TGC’s approval?’

There was a very long pause. ‘Right,’ said the Bellman with a sigh, ‘that’s it for the moment. I’ll be giving out assignments in ten minutes. Session’s over – and let’s be careful out there.”
― Jasper Fforde, The Well of Lost Plots

“If you go home with somebody, and they don't have books, don't fuck 'em!”
― John Waters

“It wasn't until I started reading and found books they wouldn't let us read in school that I discovered you could be insane and happy and have a good life without being like everybody else.”
― John Waters

“Being rich is not about how much money you have or how many homes you own; it's the freedom to buy any book you want without looking at the price and wondering if you can afford it.”
― John Waters, Role Models

“We need to make books cool again. If you go home with somebody and they don't have books, don't fuck them.”
― John Waters

“I always wanted to be a juvenile delinquent but my parents wouldn't let me.”
― John Waters

“Contemporary art hates you.”
― John Waters

“Sometimes I wish I was a woman, just so I could have an abortion.”
― John Waters

“I respect everything I make fun of.”
― John Waters

“And not that it matters, but my mother is not a lesbian! She's just a really, really bad heterosexual.”
― Carrie Fisher, Wishful Drinking

“I not only feel better about myself because these people are also fucked up (and I guess this gives us a sense of community), but I feel better because look how much these fellow fuckups managed to accomplish!”
― Carrie Fisher, Wishful Drinking

“Karl Marx: "Religion is the opiate of the masses."

Carrie Fisher: "I did masses of opiates religiously.”
― Carrie Fisher, Postcards from the Edge

“As UC Berkeley economics professor Brad DeLong put it to me:

You get famine if the price of food spikes far beyond that of some people's means. This can be because food is short, objectively. This can be because the rich have bid the resources normally used to produce food away to other uses. You also get famine when the price of food is moderate if the incomes of large groups collapse.... In all of this, the lesson is that a properly functioning market does not seek to advance human happiness but rather to advance human wealth. What speaks in the market is money: purchasing power. If you have no money, you have no voice in the market. The market acts as if it does not know you exist and does not care whether you live or die.

DeLong describes a marketplace that leaves people to die - not out of malice , but out of indifference.”
― Annalee Newitz, Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction

“An art college tip is probably the repository for some of the ugliest objects on earth because they aren't only ugly objects, they're ugly objects that are trying to be art.”
― Wendy Jones, Grayson Perry: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl

“Although the art world is frequently characterised as a classless scene where artists from lower-msddle-class backgrounds drink champagne with high-priced hedge-fund managers, scholarly curators, fashion designers and other "creatives," you'd be mistaken if you thought the world was egalitarian or democratic. Art is about experimenting with ideas, but it is also about excellence and exclusion. In a society where everyone is looking for a little distinction, it's an intoxicating combination.”
― Sarah Thornton, Seven Days in the Art World

“The contemporary art world is what Tom Wolfe would call a "statusphere." It's structured around nebulous and often contradictory hierarchies of fame, credibility, imagined historical importance, institutional affliction, perceived intelligence, wealth, and attribution such as the size of one's art collection.”
― Sarah Thornton, Seven Days in the Art World

“The only way to learn is to live.”
― Matt Haig, The Midnight Library

“A person was like a city. You couldn't let a few less desirable parts put you off the whole. There may be bits you don't like, a few dodgy side streets and suburbs, but the good stuff makes it worthwhile.”
― Matt Haig, The Midnight Library

“You’re overthinking it.’ ‘I have anxiety. I have no other type of thinking available.”
― Matt Haig, The Midnight Library

“Regrets ignore chronology. They float around.”
― Matt Haig, The Midnight Library