Bullet to the Head
What I bought – 2 December 2010
“I play with life, you say, and that is true, but I play because it pleases me; whereas Christian virtues would bore me in a day, as does the philosophy of Seneca. Because of this, Paul’s eloquence is displayed in vain. He should understand that people like me will never accept his religion. With your temperament you might either hate Christians or become a Christian immediately. I recognize, while yawning, the truth of what they say. We are mad. We are hastening to our doom, something unknown is coming toward us, something is dying around us – agreed! But life exists for itself alone, not for death.” (Henryk Sienkiewicz, from Quo Vadis)
What I bought – 3 November 2010
“It’s the worst thing you’ll ever do in your life,” she said, “helping the people you love to do something that in your heart you believe is deeply wrong.” (Orson Scott Card, from Xenocide)
What I bought – 29 September 2010
Neither of the two people in the room paid any attention to the way I came in, although only one of them was dead. (Raymond Chandler, from The Big Sleep)
What I bought – 1 September 2010
“Your profession?”
“Poet.”
“Poet? But what do you really do?”
“I write poetry.” (Jerzy Kosinski, from Blind Date)
What I bought – 21 and 28 July 2010
Society had tamed the erratic fellow by co-opting him into the mainstream. For its largest threats, society reserves success. (Richard Powers, from Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance)
What I bought – 23 June 2010
“Concentration-camp existence … taught us that the whole world is really like a concentration camp,” wrote Tadeusz Borowski. “The weak work for the strong, and if they have no strength or will to work – then let them steal, or let them die. … There is no crime that a man will not commit in order to save himself. And, having saved himself, he will commit crimes for increasingly trivial reasons; he will commit them first out of duty, then from habit, and finally – for pleasure. … The world is ruled by neither justice nor morality; crime is not punished nor virtue rewarded, one is forgotten as quickly as the other. The world is ruled by power …” (Otto Friedrich, from The End of the World)
