470 books
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Gary
https://www.goodreads.com/mrthomson
“Look! You look, Mr Stone Eagle!' I shout down the telephone. 'This one's big time. This one's different. Do you know where the people behind your superquarry came from — names like McAskill and Kelly? They came from places like the Hebrides and Ireland in the Celtic world. Over here. They got pulled like weeds from their own land and transplanted onto yours. Don't you see? We're both from superquarry-threatened communities. We're both from communities that got fucked over, yes, fucked over. They cleared the native people and now they're wanting even the rocks.”
― Soil and Soul: People versus Corporate Power
― Soil and Soul: People versus Corporate Power
“We are swimming upstream against a great torrent of disorganization...In this, our main obligation is to establish arbitrary enclaves of order and system...It is the greatest possible victory to be, to continue to be, and to have been. No defeat can deprive us of the success of having existed for some moment of time in a universe that seems indifferent to us.
This is no defeatism...The declaration of our own nature and the attempt to build up an enclave of organization in the face of nature's overwhelming tendency to disorder is an insolence against the gods and the iron necessity that they impose. Here lies tragedy, but here lies glory too...
All this represents the manner in which I believe I have been able to add something positive to the pessimism of...the existensialists. I have not replaced the gloom of existence by a philosophy which is optimistic in any Pollyanna sense, but...with a positive attitude toward the universe and toward our life in it. ”
―
This is no defeatism...The declaration of our own nature and the attempt to build up an enclave of organization in the face of nature's overwhelming tendency to disorder is an insolence against the gods and the iron necessity that they impose. Here lies tragedy, but here lies glory too...
All this represents the manner in which I believe I have been able to add something positive to the pessimism of...the existensialists. I have not replaced the gloom of existence by a philosophy which is optimistic in any Pollyanna sense, but...with a positive attitude toward the universe and toward our life in it. ”
―
“On pillow after pillow lies
The wild white hair and staring eyes;
Jaws stand open; necks are stretched
With every tendon sharply sketched;
A bearded mouth talks silently
To someone no one else can see.
Sixty years ago they smiled
At lover, husband, first-born child.
Smiles are for youth. For old age come
Death's terror and delirium.
- Heads in the Women's Ward”
― Collected Poems
The wild white hair and staring eyes;
Jaws stand open; necks are stretched
With every tendon sharply sketched;
A bearded mouth talks silently
To someone no one else can see.
Sixty years ago they smiled
At lover, husband, first-born child.
Smiles are for youth. For old age come
Death's terror and delirium.
- Heads in the Women's Ward”
― Collected Poems
“Brides over thirty shouldn't wear white,' said Jessie, who had now joined them.
Well, they may have a perfect right to,' said Jane.
A woman over thirty might not like you to think that,' said Jessie quickly. 'There can be something shameful about flaunting one's lack of experience.”
― Jane and Prudence
Well, they may have a perfect right to,' said Jane.
A woman over thirty might not like you to think that,' said Jessie quickly. 'There can be something shameful about flaunting one's lack of experience.”
― Jane and Prudence
“Discovery is a child’s privilege. I mean the small child, the child who is not afraid to be wrong, to look silly, to not be serious, and to act differently from everyone else. He is also not afraid that the things he is interested in are in bad taste or turn out to be different from his expectations, from what they should be, or rather he is not afraid of what they actually are. He ignores the silent and flawless consensus that is part of the air we breathe – the consensus of all the people who are, or are reputed to be, reasonable.”
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Math Reading Challenge
— 236 members
— last activity Feb 19, 2025 05:16AM
This is a group created by Evelyn Lamb for readers who are interested in participating in her Math Reading Challenge in 2020. Below are twelve prompts ...more
Good Readers of Scotland
— 298 members
— last activity Nov 20, 2017 12:30AM
Whether you're Scottish, living in Scotland, or enjoy books about Scotland or by Scottish authors, you'll be given a typical Northern welcome here! ...more
Mount TBR Reading Challenge 2012
— 59 members
— last activity Aug 24, 2013 01:02AM
ALERT!!! This Reading Challenge was for 2012. To join NOW, please go to Mount TBR 2013. This group is for those who would like to participate in the ...more
LThMath Book Club
— 319 members
— last activity Jan 26, 2022 08:18AM
In the past year I have wanted to read more books on mathematics, mathematicians and the history of mathematics. After half a year, I realized that it ...more
Gary’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Gary’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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