Brief Notes on the Art and Manner of Arranging One's Books Quotes

“All utopias are depressing because they leave no room for chance, for difference, for the 'miscellaneous'.”
― Georges Perec, Brief Notes on the Art and Manner of Arranging One's Books

“Describe your street. Describe another street. Compare. Make an inventory of your pockets, of your bag. Ask yourself about the provenance, the use, what will become of each of the objects you take out. Question your tea spoons. What is there under your wallpaper? How many movements does it take to dial a phone number? Why? Why don’t you find cigarettes in grocery stores? Why not?”
― Georges Perec, Brief Notes on the Art and Manner of Arranging One's Books

“What is scandalous isn't the pit explosion, it's working in coalmines. 'Social problems' aren't 'a matter of concern' when there's a strike, they are intolerable twenty-four hours out of twenty-four, three hundred and sixty-five days a year.”
― Georges Perec, Brief Notes on the Art and Manner of Arranging One's Books

“I write in order to live and I live in order to write, and I've come close to imagining that writing and living might merge completely: I would live in the company of dictionaries, deep in some provincial retreat, in the mornings I would go for a walk in the woods, in the afternoons I would blacken a few sheets of paper, in the evenings I would relax perhaps by listening to a bit of music.”
― Georges Perec, Brief Notes on the Art and Manner of Arranging One's Books