Thursday, October 20, 2005
quotable quotes"One of the curious things about CENSORSHIP is that no one seems to want it for himself. We want CENSORSHIP to protect someone else: the young, the unstable, the suggestible, the stupid. I have never heard of anyone who wanted a film banned because otherwise he might see it and be harmed."- Edgar Dale, US educationist (1900-)
"Love has got complicated, tied up with promises, bruised with plans, dogged with an ending that nobody wants - when all love is, is what it always is - that you look at me and want me and I don't turn away. If I want to say no, I will, but for the right reasons. If I want to say yes, I will, but for the right reasons. Leave the consequences. Leave the finale. Leave the grand statements. This simplicity of feeling should not be taxed."-Jeanette Winterson, The Powerbook
"I don't believe in God as a kind father in the sky. I don't believe that the meek will inherit the earth: The meek get ignored and trampled. They decompose in the bloody soil of war, of business, of art, and they rot into the warm ground under the spring rains. It is the bold, the loud-mouthed, the cruel, the vital, the revolutionaries, the mighty in arms and will, who march over the soft patient flesh that lies beneath their cleated boots."-Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
"But was it really like that? As painful as I remember? Only mildly. Or rather, it was a productive and fructifying pain. Love, thick and dark as Alaga syrup, eased up into that cracked window. I could smell it -- taste it -- sweet, musty, with an edge of wintergreen in its base -- everywhere in that house. It stuck, along with my tongue, to the frosted windowpanes. It coated my chest, along with the salve, and when the flannel came undone in my sleep, the clear, sharp curves of air outlined its presence on my throat. And in the night, when my coughing was dry and tough, feet padded into the room, hands repinned the flannel, readjusted the quilt, and rested a moment on my forehead. So when I think of autumn, I think of somebody with hands who does not want me to die."- Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye
"I am alone. Alone here and alone in the world. Alone in my heart and alone in my mind. Alone everywhere, all the time, for as long as I can remember. Alone with my Family, alone with my friends, alone in a room full of people. Alone when I wake, alone through each awful day, alone when I finally meet blackness. I am alone in my horror. Alone in my horror.
I don't want to be alone. I have never wanted to be alone. I fucking hate it. I hate that I have no one to talk to, I hate that I have no one to call, I hate that I have no one to hold my hand, hug me, tell me everything is going to be all right. I hate that I have no one to share my hopes and my dreams with, I hate that I no longer have any hopes or dreams, I hate that when I scream, and I scream bloody murder, that I am screaming into emptiness. I hate that there is no one to hear my scream and that there is no one to help me learn how to stop screaming. I hate that what I've turned to in my loneliness lives in a pipe or a bottle. I hate that what I have turned to in my loneliness is killing me, has already killed me, or will kill me soon. I hate that I will die alone. I will die alone in my horror.
More than anything, all I've ever wanted was to be close to someone."-James Frey, A Million Little Pieces
Literature never ceases to amaze me with its multifaceted nature. The beauty of it is that nothing is absolute, and that means there are no boundaries. Sometimes I think, what if I had taken the scholarship, and majored in English literature, and everyday would be full of philosophical revelations, waxing lyrical, inspired and fervent writing and thumbing through literary classics. That would be so lovely it wouldn't even feel like going to school because it's my kinda thing! Back in JC I loved 'S' Paper so much and I loved not having a reading list that I went on a reading spree...Margaret Atwood, Maxine Hong Kinston, Maya Angelou, and got so annoyed when all the 'S' paper questions applicable to my module were like, "use only two books". What the fuck right?
In a Rory Gilmore sort of way, I miss having heaps of books to devour, going into a tizzy everytime I spotted some gorgeous literary device that would make me want to whip out my highlighter and annotate it like mad. But, coming to university I decided I wanted to try someting new, and I thought well, it's now or never to do something I've never done before, and there will be an E Lit minor. Besides, I don't think I'm cut out to be a teacher.
Anyway, the whole point of this rambly post is that I love those quotes, but it triggered off this whole meandering thing. *shrugs*
rachel at 12:41 AM