Monday Make'y'think Material

Since this is a list I meant to write out and I must return Cloud Atlas to the library in two days, I will do it here where I won't put it off. (It was a busy weekend, don't get me wrong; I'll share on that tomorrow.) Adieu, David

Letters From Zedelghem

"Liberality? Timidity in the rich!" "Socialism? The younger brother of a decrepit despotism, which is wants to succeed." "Conservatives? Adventurous liars, whose doctrine of free will is their greatest deception." What sort of state does he want? "None! The better organized the state, the duller its humanity." (61)

A half-read book is a half-finished love affair. (64)

Whoever opined "Money can't but you happiness" obviously had far too much of the stuff. (75)

The War Office makes mistakes -- if war's first victim is truth, its second is clerical efficiency. (441)

"... War, Robert, is one of humanity's two eternal companions."
So, I asked, what was the other?
"Diamonds." (444)

Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery

A contrived puzzle, yes, but all thrillers would wither without contrivance. (95)

The conflict between corporations and activists is that of narcolepsy versus remembrance. The corporations have money, power, and influence. [Activists'] sole weapon is public outrage. (123-124)

The present presses the virtual past into its own service, to lend credence to its mythologies + legitimacy to the imposition of will. Power seeks + is the right to "landscape" the virtual past. (He who pays the historian calls the tune.) (392-393)

Where there's bluster, thinks Luisa, there's duplicity. (410)

The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish

Odd how the wrong stories pop into one's head at my age. (146)

"Come now, what's a reviewer?" I reasoned. "One who reads quickly, arrogantly, but never wisely . . ." (149)

" 'Today' usually means 'as soon as possible,' yes." (159)

" 'Unlimited power in the hands of limited people always leads to cruelty.' " ... "Solzhenitsyn." (180)

Young ruddy fool. What I wouldn't give now for a never-changing map of the ever-constant ineffable? To possess, as it were, an atlas of clouds. (373)

An Orison of Sonmi-451

Truth is singular. Its "versions" are mistruths. (185)

To enslave an individual troubles your consciences, Archivist, but to enslave a clone is no more troubling than owning the latest six-wheeler ford, ethically. (187)

Humor is the ovum of dissent, and the Juche should fear it. (188)

A duplicitous archivist wouldn't be of much use to future historians, in my view. (189)

Meticulous brains will overlook the simple. (322)

Fantasy. Lunacy.
All revolutions are, until they happen, then they are historical inevitabilities. (326)

Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin After

Women, oh, women! They'll find the baddest meanin' in your words an' hold it up, sayin', Look what you attacked me with! (256)

An' I reck'n if it was your son, Anafi, lyin' there with scorpion fish poison meltin' his heart'n'lungs, this nat'ral order'd not be so important to you, yay? (267)

Times are you say a person's b'liefs ain't true, they think you're sayin' their lifes ain't true an' their truth ain't true. (273)

Now the Civ'lized got the same needs [as the savages], but he sees further. He'll eat half his food now, yay, but plant half so he won't go hungry 'morrow. He's angry, he'll stop'n'think why so he won't get angry next time. He's swellin', well, he's got sisses an' daughters what need respectin' so he'll respect his bros' sisses and daughters. His will is his slave, an' if his will say-soes, "Don't!" he won't nay. (303)