Josiah > Josiah's Quotes

“now we have fathomed what our space-ship is
--a tiny bubble in a glass of God.”
― Harry Martinson, Aniara

“A symbolic unity formed by the languor of the fluids, by the darkening of the animal spirits and the shadowy twi­light they spread over the images of things, by the viscosity of the blood that laboriously trickles through the vessels, by the thickening of vapors that have become blackish, deleterious, and acrid, by visceral functions that have be­come slow and somehow slimy-this unity, more a product of sensibility than of thought or theory, gives melancholia its characteristic stamp.”
― Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason

“What does reading do, You can learn almost everything from reading, But I read too, So you must know something, Now I'm not so sure, You'll have to read differently then, How, The same method doesn't work for everyone, each person has to invent his or her own, whichever suits them best, some people spend their entire lives reading but never get beyond reading the words on the page, they don't understand that the words are merely stepping stones placed across a fast-flowing river, and the reason they're there is so that we can reach the farther shore, it's the other side that matters, Unless, Unless what, Unless those rivers don't have just two shores but many, unless each reader is his or her own shore, and that shore is the only shore worth reaching.”
― Jose Saramago, The Cave

“And in their corner all they had was Murderbot, who just wanted everyone to shut up and leave it alone so it could watch the entertainment feed all day.”
― Martha Wells, All Systems Red

“The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb

“Words have as little relation to fact and feeling as coin to the bread it buys.”
― John Galsworthy, The Forsyte Saga

“Jack had imagined his fame all his life and now it was imagining him.”
― William Kennedy, Legs

“...the only brotherhood they belonged to was the one that asked that enduring question: How do I get through the next twenty minutes? They feared drys, cops, jailers, bosses, moralists, crazies, truth-tellers, and one another. they loved storytellers, liars, whores, fighters, singers, collie dogs that wagged their tails, and generous bandits. Rudy, thought Francis: he's just a bum, but who ain't?”
― William Kennedy, Ironweed

“If this were so; if the desert were 'home'; if our instincts were forged in the desert; to survive the rigours of the desert - then it is easier to understand why greener pastures pall on us; why possessions exhaust us, and why Pascal's imaginary man found his comfortable lodgings a prison.”
― Bruce Chatwin, The Songlines

“Tilda cared nothing for the future, and had, as a result, a great capacity for happiness.”
― Penelope Fitzgerald, Offshore