Warwick Stubbs > Recent Status Updates

reminds me of what I love about science fiction - forces me to think hard about what's happening.

"Those that the gods want to render stupid, they first make talkative." p.12

"Arcadia is a dream of city-dwellers, of people exiled from nature." p.65

A boring chore this book has turned into. I've slogged my way through Part 1 and just can't bring myself to continue on. My hope is that I might be able to pick up a heavily edited version, perhaps an original Constance Garnett translation would do me better. Dostoyevsky just doesn't have the skill of a homourist, so much of the humour is wasted (especially if it fails in translation).

"With stern expressions they informed her that they'd considered the matter of her journal and had come to the following conclusions. Varvara had never authorised anyone to consider her journal or come to any conclusions." - p. 23

"Fittingly it is an advertisement for men's skin care by L'Oréal that catches the moment, becoming the emblem of an age of narcissism, entitlement and excess. Patrick Dempsey represents neoliberalism's ideal type ... he exudes sex, power and wealth even his well moisturised stubble looks expensive."

"The global financial crisis developed in areas of the economy that were deregulated, and hence no longer under the careful oversight of financial authorities. ... Given the enormous rewards that accrue to top-of-the-food-chain players true market believers may find the occasional crash of 'the economies of many nations' a cheap enough price"

"You'll learn that love rarely lasts and that it's possible to love more than one person at the same time ... This idea that you can only love one person is the reason why most people live in confusion."
- p.69

O vase of acid,
It is love you are full of. You know who you hate.
He is hugging his ball and chain down by the gate
That opens to the sea
Where it drives in, white and black,
Then spews it back.

- 'Lesbos'

"You're a remarkably eclectic bunch," said John Ude, laughing. "Do you believe all this stolen theology?"
"Why not?" I said. "I stole it myself."

"Sitting in the grass in the spring sunshine. Somewhere nearby a starling was munching on a song, savouring every whistley morsel before spitting it out for inspection in long chewing-gum threads."

- Judith White, from 'The Elusive Language of Ducks'

"I mean, right now we're in this situation where we're almost extinct because humans think that the only way to get to know a bird at all is to catch her. And that all comes from this lie that society has taught them - that you have to own and control everything in order to enjoy it."

- Claire O'Loughlin 'Huia'

"This may be tiresome prattle to you, but it is something else to me: it is my heart's despair."

"Thousands of young people kill themselves in America each year... Wives get beaten by their husbands; cops kill blacks and Latinos; old people rummage in garbage cans or eat dog food - shame rules, calling the shots. Suicide is only one shameful event out of a plethora. There are black teenagers who will never get a job as long as they live, not because they are lazy but because there are no jobs"
- Philip K. Dick

"Emily Dickinson was full of shit when she prattled about 'kindly Death'; that's an abominable thought, that death is kind. She never saw a six-car pile-up on the Eastshore Freeway."

"An entirely fictional war in the Indian state of Goa was invented, and not only survived for five years on Wikipedia, but became a popular entry and won an award." (p.304)

"'The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern,' said Lord Acton. 'Every class is unfit to govern.'" (p.241)

"The closer you look at the history of economic development, the less you find that it has owed to leadership." (p.228)