Quotes

 

 If there's one thing I can do, it's pick a quote.  Books are my world.  If this looks like another book list, it's because it is;  if there are repeats, it's because they're good.  These quotes have resonated strongly within me for the past 6 months.

   "Acts of injustice done, Between the setting and the rising sun, In history lie like bones, each one." 

  --  by W. H. Auden, quoted in Watership Down, by Richard Adams (1975).

From Taking Chances by Molly Keane (pub. 1929):

image taken from Amazon

"Her own heart cried out for justice, while there is no justice -- only consequences.  And consequences are the most inconsequent and incalculable things in the world.  They are just as likely as not to skip over the unrepentant head of the evil-doer who has brought them about, and light heavy with calamity on the bowed neck of a sufferer whose load is already heavier than can be borne."

 I hunted so hard for the above quote, once it had stuck in my head.  Molly Keane is one of my favorite finds, on a par with Isak Dinesen.  Her work can easily be obtained as e-books.

Another that stuck in my head is from Weaveworld by Clive Barker (1987), speaking about unleashing the Scourge:

           "What have you done?  It knows no mercy!"

image from BetterWorld Books

" 'Very well.  I'll go.  But there's one thing I jolly well mean to say first.  I didn't believe in Magic until to-day.  I see now that it's real.  Well if it is, I suppose all the old fairy tales are more or less true.  And you're simply a wicked, cruel magician like all the ones in the stories.  Well I've never read a story in which people of that sort weren't paid out in the end, and I bet you will be.  And serve you right.'

"Of all the things Digory had said this was the first that really went home.  Uncle Andrew started and there came over his face a look of such horror that beast though he was, you could almost feel sorry for him."

  From The Magician's Nephew, by Clive Staples Lewis (1955).  Emphasis on the "almost." 

image from Old Gold & Black

"But sir, a solid gold plane wouldn't be able to fly!"

"Kowalski, we're rich!  The laws of physics don't apply to us!!"

-- from the movie Madagascar 3, Europe's Most Wanted (Dreamworks, 2012).

The Stand, by Stephen King, published 1978.   Unfortunately my memory is letting me down on this one;  I don't recall exactly where in the book the quote is.  It's about the devil being gigantic and stupid and only being able to repeat the same 2 or 3 simple patterns. 

One of my favorite books (as if there weren't dozens) is a hauntingly appropriate family memoir, not to mention exorcism, about the Stanford White story.  I opened it recently (April 9) and a paragraph leaped out.

"Others found Stanford harsh in his criticism and offensive in his use of foul language.  Still other reminscences mention self-centeredness and a pattern of domineering, all of which were tolerated because of his charm -- powerful when he turned it on -- and his overflowing giftedness.  He was the baby of the office, a big, inspired toddler, indulged, angelic, oblivious, tyrannical."

--from Architect of Desire, by Suzannah Lessard, 1996 

 David Gerrold (of Star Trek fame) in 2016:  "... a 268-pound toddler."

Back to rabbits.

 

 

image from Watership Productions 1978

At the risk of spoilage for those who have not read Richard Adams' Watership Down:

“A rabbit has two ears;  a rabbit has two eyes, two nostrils.  Our two warrens ought to be like that.  They should be together —not fighting….  Rabbits have enough enemies as it is… A mating between free, independent warrens-— what do you say?”
At that moment,…, there was offered to General Woundwort the opportunity to show whether he was really the leader of vision and genius which he believed himself to be, or whether he was no more than a tyrant … For one beat of his pulse the lame rabbit’s idea shone clearly before him.  He grasped it and realized what it meant.  The next, he had pushed it away … he could see clearly the track along the ridge, leading … to the bloodshed for which he had prepared with so much energy and care.
“I haven’t time to sit here talking nonsense,” said Woundwort…"

---from Watership Down, by Richard Adams, page 421-422, Avon Books, 1975.

The Sledge Patrol

The Sledge Patrol, a beloved old 1950s clothbound book, relates the adventures of a small group of Eskimos, hunters and weather station operators after Germany invaded Denmark in 1940.  'Eskimos meet Nazis.'  It is set on the east coast of Greenland, and comprises one of  2 books I possess about Greenland (the other is Peter Hoeg's Smilla's Sense of Snow, most decidedly rated R).   The Sledge Patrol is rated G and is a perfectly wonderful tale on many grounds.  It is not fiction.  I have always been interested in sled dog racing and the Arctic (thank you Farley Mowat!) and this is a treasure.  Again at risk of spoiling the story, I quote the last sentence.

"His ex-enemies, among whom I incude myself, all wish him well;  we all recognize the old truth which was shown again in that arctic spring of 1943:  that it is proper for all true men of every nation to act together in opposition to evil and oppression, wherever and whenever they arise."

-- David Howarth, The Sledge Patrol, 1957.

image from Tara McGrathMFT

 Exvangelicals by Sarah McCammon (2024), has given me a mere pair of words, but oh, what a pair.  This phrase has become extremely powerful for me.  In the book it refers to the mind's difficulty in comprehending the distance between Christian values and White Evangelical Christian values as practiced by the current administration:

                                         "Cognitive Dissonance"

If we're down to just words, there's a single word that speaks oh so much for those who know their World War II history:

                              Wolkenkuckucksheim

This is German for "cloud cuckoo land," the realm of ideal but imaginary perfection that lived inside Hitler's head, and in many other politicians, untested (untainted?) by reality.   It was first used in the 1800s.

image from Amazon

 From Elizabeth Chaney's Oath & Honor (2023):

"I asked Condi [Condoleezza Rice] if she could think of any historic examples of countries successfully throwing off cults of personality.  She replied, 'Not without great violence and upheaval.' "

 From my own Notebook:  "If he really had won in 2020 then he's serving a third term now.  And that's against the Constitution."  Certainly against the 22nd Amendment, introduced for this very situation.  For his followers:

Can you imagine what it would gain him to lie to you?

 Not a book but a poster seen online (I'm afraid I don't know who to credit; will when known):

image from eBay

"... nearer and nearer came the roaring march of the ice.  At last the fields round them cracked and starred in every direction, and the cracks opened and snapped like the teeth of wolves.  But where the Thing rested, ... there was no motion.  Kotuko leaped forward wildly, dragged the girl after him, ... The talking of the ice grew louder and louder round them, but the mound stayed fast, ... land it was, ... shod and sheathed and masked with ice so that no man could have told it from the floe, but at the bottom solid earth, and no shifting ice."

-- Rudyard Kipling, from Quiquern, Book Two of the Jungle Books, 1895

I can't resist slipping in another movie:  Moana, by Disney, 2016.

 "They Have Stolen The Heart From Inside You;  But This Does Not Define You.  I Know Who You Are.  Who You Really Are..." --- Lin-Manuel Miranda

 2503.29, written in the very early morning:  "My country's heart has been or is being stolen.  But this does not define her... The 'n' makes all the difference:  Define not defy.  She must become what her people see her as becoming.  This is a spiritual law that cannot be broken.

"My own life's experience, of how desperately a split life yearns to be whole, is beyond precious now.  But the only way [to be whole] is a compromise, a partnership:  Working together to find ways to not just share the pie, but make more of them.  Government is not a business, any more than the TSII is solely for profit.  Any more than a model horse [of mine] is solely for showing purposes.  An entire mature dimension is left out if you think in simple, brute force phrases, in jingoistic black and white.  As a child does.  As one would who does not know how to compromise, [or] to feel for another different from one's self.

"My response to Covid was make an enormous sacrifice:  To give away all my secrets.  In practice I couldn't give them all -- !!! -- but enough to make a difference.  Enough to count.  Certainly enough to learn how to teach.  And Geo, bless his professor's heart, has taught me to see from the other person's point of view.  Nothing less than complete transparency is acceptable or will do the job.  [of teaching]  [of anything!]

"We cling to the strongest within us.  Almighty God, What is the right thing to do?  How to restore harmony and balance & beauty in a world gone mad?    //   I'm sure the Germans asked the same question.  //  We can tolerate division but our heart yearns to be whole.  //  I need a new symbol for America.  A buffalo?  An elk?  A wolf?  A mustang?  Certainly a rainbow.  [But] The symbol only has as much meaning as you invest in it.  This is true for all symbols.

We are certainly going through an ugly stage right now."  

[A reference to the stages of painting a model.]

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Since this really is about books, here's one last beautiful favorite, above the fray.  This is Elizabeth Goudge's great classic from 1946, The Little White Horse.  Transparency and effort are rewarded.  I can't tell you how often I have turned to it for comfort and succor.

Thanks for reading.