It is good that this is not always trueIt is good that this is not always true
“Women fall in love when they get to know you. Men are just the opposite. When they finally know you they’re ready to leave.” — James Salter, “American Express”
Author: Tetman Callis
A moment’s rash action, a lifetime of regretA moment’s rash action, a lifetime of regret
“The king who, arriving at certain conclusions, carries on his regal affairs agreeable to justice, has no need to repent afterwards. But those actions that are done without deliberation, like unto clarified butter poured onto an unclean sacrifice, conduce only to harm.” — Valmiki Ramayana, Yuddhakanda Sarga 12
That tower looks like it may fallThat tower looks like it may fall
“So long as all the increased wealth which modern progress brings goes but to build up great fortunes, to increase luxury and make sharper the contrast between the House of Have and the House of Want, progress is not real and cannot be permanent. The reaction must come. The tower leans from its foundations, and every new story but hastens the final catastrophe. To educate men who must be condemned to poverty, is but to make them restive; to base on a state of most glaring social inequality political institutions under which men are theoretically equal, is to stand a pyramid on its apex.” — Henry George, Progress and Poverty (1879)
News to someNews to some
“Compromise on public issues is the price of civilization, not an abrogation of principle.” — Alan Greenspan, The Age of Turbulence
In case anyone is still wonderingIn case anyone is still wondering
“Sound loans are at the heart of a sound banking system. Unsound loans are the surest route to disaster.” — McLean & Nocera, All the Devils Are Here
Suitable for a Sunday morningSuitable for a Sunday morning
“It’s a strange horrific world and while it hurts it fascinates.” — Joseph Stanley Pennell, The History of Rome Hanks and Kindred Matters
The binding tiesThe binding ties
“If Americans want the U.S. to continue to exist in something like its current form, they will need to respect the fundamental tenets of our unlikely union. It can’t survive if we end the separation of church and state or ban the expression (or criticism) of offensive ideas. We won’t hold together if presidents appoint political ideologues to the Supreme Court, or if party loyalists try to win elections by trying to stop people from voting. The union can’t function if national coalitions continue to use House and Senate rules to prevent decision-making on important issues. Other sovereign democratic states have central governments more dysfunctional than our own, but most can fall back on unifying elements we lack: common ethnicity, a shared religion or near-universal consensus on many fundamental political issues. Our constitutional order — an arrangement negotiated among the regional cultures — assumes and requires compromise in order to function at all. And the U.S. needs its central government to function cleanly, openly and efficiently because it’s one of the few important things that bind us together.” — Colin Woodard, “Real U.S. Map, a Country of Regions”
Paying it forwardPaying it forward
“I am like the middleclass housewife who drapes her house with plush horrors: I festoon myself with small beasts and give them to eat and suck and warm them. I am a truly generous mound of flesh. I daily lay down my life not for my friends but for those hungry little persons I have never seen. Stay, says my carrion, do stay and raise a bloody fine family—there’s room for us all here and food for the children. Thus daily I am camped on, lived in and eaten.” — Joseph Stanley Pennell, The History of Rome Hanks and Kindred Matters
Perhaps notPerhaps not
“If in war time the theatre has made itself necessary, does it not follow that some day the Government, regarding the theatre as a necessary social institution for the American people, will give it Congressional support in its artistic maintenance, and recognize its importance by having it represented in the Presidential Cabinet by a Secretary of Fine Arts? This might do much to give direction and purpose to future American playwriting.” — Montrose J. Moses, The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, Vol. XVII, Ch. XVIII, Sec. 29
Great lucky monkeysGreat lucky monkeys
“Who knows not the prowess of the monkeys who in the days of yore used to visit the celestials invited?” — Valmiki Ramayana, Sundarakanda Sarga 58
God help me, my skin is stuckGod help me, my skin is stuck
“What iniquity is there which cannot be perpetrated by the angry? They can even slay the worshipful and vilify the pious with harsh words. The angry cannot decide what should be spoken and what not. There is no vice which cannot be committed by them, and there is nothing which cannot be spoken by them. He is the proper person who can subdue his rising ire by means of forgiveness as a serpent leaves off his worn skin.” — Valmiki Ramayana, Sundarakanda Sarga 55
The trinity of democracyThe trinity of democracy
“Sports, politics, and religion are the three passions of the badly educated.” — William H. Gass, “In the Heart of the Heart of the Country”
Something for husbands and wivesSomething for husbands and wives
“I shall not give sanctuary to suspicion, for it eats the bowels like a slow acid.” — Joseph Stanley Pennell, The History of Rome Hanks and Kindred Matters
The bearable lightness of beingsThe bearable lightness of beings
“Love is infinite and one. Women are not. Neither are men. The human condition. Nearly unbearable.” — Leonard Michaels, “City Boy”
Here comes one now!Here comes one now!
“In a crisis you discover everything. Then it’s too late. Know yourself, indeed. You need a crisis every day.” — Leonard Michaels, “City Boy”
CDOs, anyone?CDOs, anyone?
“Old men are just as bad as young men when it comes to money. They can’t think. They always try to buy what they should have for free. And what they buy, after they have it, is nothing.” — James Alan McPherson, “A Solo Song: For Doc”
Old road closedOld road closed
High Street has been accepted for publication by Outpost19, “Provocative Digital Publishing” (http://outpost19.com/), so I have removed it this morning from this website. Excerpts from it may be re-posted here soon as part of the marketing of the book, which should be available for purchase as an e-book through Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com (and others yet to be determined) in a couple of months or so.
With men it’s violenceWith men it’s violence
“The great and almost only comfort about being a woman is that one can always pretend to be more stupid than one is and no one is surprised.” — Freya Stark (quoted in “East Is West” by Claudia Roth Pierpont)
Artists knowArtists know
“The great and tragic fact of experience is the fact of effort and passionate toil which never finds complete satisfaction. This eternal frustration of our ideals or will is an essential part of spiritual life, and enriches it just as the shadows enrich the picture or certain discords bring about richer harmony.” — Morris R. Cohen, The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, Vol. XVII, Ch. XVI, Sec. 21
When science was kingWhen science was king
“Commonly we fix beliefs by reiterating them, by surrounding them with emotional safeguards, and by avoiding anything which casts doubt upon them—by ‘the will to believe.’ This method breaks down when the community ceases to be homogeneous. Social effort, by the method of authority, to eliminate diversity of beliefs also fails in the end to prevent reflective doubts from cropping up. Hence we must finally resort to the method of free inquiry and let science stabilize our ideas by clarifying them. How can this be done?” — Morris R. Cohen, The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, Vol. XVII, Ch. XVI, Sec. 18
The view from without the caveThe view from without the cave
“Intellectual pioneers are rarely gregarious creatures. In their isolation they lose touch with those who follow the beaten paths, and when they return to the community they speak strangely of strange sights, so that few have the faith to follow them and change their trails into high roads.” — Morris R. Cohen, The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, Vol. XVII, Ch. XVI, Sec. 18
Ideas whose time cameIdeas whose time came
“Out of unrestricted competition arise many wrongs that the State must redress and many abuses which it must check. It may become the duty of the State to reform its taxation, so that its burdens shall rest less heavily upon the lower classes; to repress monopolies of all sorts; to prevent and punish gambling; to regulate or control the railroads and telegraphs; to limit the ownership of land; to modify the laws of inheritance; and possibly to levy a progressive income-tax, so that the enormous fortunes should bear more rather than less than their share of the public burdens.” — Washington Gladden (quoted in The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, Vol. XVII, Ch. XVI, Sec. 12)
Welcome to AmericaWelcome to America
“Dishonest men can be bought and ignorant men can be manipulated. This is the kind of government which private capital, invested in public-service industries, naturally feels that it must have.” — Washington Gladden (quoted in The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, Vol. XVII, Ch. XVI, Sec. 12)
True equalityTrue equality
“Whether in the enjoyment of vast riches, or immersed in the abyss of miseries, Death is pulling a man, binding him roughly with a cord.” — Valmiki Ramayana, Sundarakanda Sarga 37
Better that than cursing blindBetter that than cursing blind
“While the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph is never new, it always must be heard. There isn’t any other tale to tell, it’s the only light we’ve got in all this darkness.” — James Baldwin, “Sonny’s Blues”
The inside dopeThe inside dope
“99 percent of lawyers don’t understand the prison designation and correctional process, and the 1 percent who do are all doing time.” — Ellis & Shummon, Federal Prison Guidebook
Just add waterJust add water
“The beginning of everything is damp and small, but wide-armed oaks—according to myth, legend, and the folk tales of the people—from solitary acorns grow.” — Grace Paley, “In Time Which Made a Monkey of Us All”
That’s because they’re magiciansThat’s because they’re magicians
“Doctors mostly sustain themselves in a medium of false ideas, the word ‘doctor’ casting about them, so they think, a sort of magical aura.” — William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch
Otherwise it’s senselessOtherwise it’s senseless
“There is only one thing a writer can write about: what is in front of his senses at the moment of writing.” — William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch (emphasis in original)
It can be a sneaky beastIt can be a sneaky beast
“Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer.” — William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch