Liam Ostermann

“Lies were told with ease because words had lost their meaning.”
― Jung Chang

“I have used the word ‘tolerance’ in this chapter because it is the term that the people I am writing about use with real intent. Tolerance here, I think, is not what Goethe brilliantly diagnosed when he wrote, ‘Tolerance should really only be a passing attitude: it should lead to recognition. To tolerate is to offend.’2 So often, as Goethe knew, to talk of tolerance is a sign and symptom of the failure to integrate – and a hierarchical, patronising attitude towards others. We will tolerate you if you fit in with us: an attempt to keep power relations in place, while disavowing their force. But tolerance towards queerness is a much more unstable dynamic, which requires a different, more radical form of hospitality to otherness, and an acknowledgement of the impact of queerness on one’s own sense of self, and a consequent loss of bearings. Tolerance in this sense is an exploratory value, and not just a gesture of political self-congratulation.”
― Simon Goldhill, Queer Cambridge: An Alternative History

“The boy emerged out of the earth, clinging to the end of the rope. He was covered in slippery sewer sludge, and when he stood up, he shone and shimmered in the sun with a terrible beauty. His hair, stiffened by the muck, flared from his head like a crown of black flames. Behind him, the slum smoke curled towards the sky, and the hellishness of the place was complete.”
― Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance

“The problem with experiments is that they tell you nothing unless they are competently done, but in controversial science no-one can agree on a criterion of competence.”
― Harry Collins, The Golem: What You Should Know about Science