Let’s go out for 2006 on some quotables–things that either amused, or enlightened me in the waning hours of 2006.
“Anyone who gets married is a fool. I can understand why a man would get married. Everybody can use a wife. it’s just that nobody needs a husband. If women are fool enough to get married it really doesn’t matter if they take their husband’s name or not. Marriage is a very odd arrangement. A contract with no terms, a sacrament with no ritual. you don’t know what it is you promised until you’re told you didn’t do it and you’re being divorced.” –Germaine Greer (via Eddie Campbell
“I neither look forward, where there is doubt, nor backward where there is regret; I look inward and ask myself not if there is anything out in the world that I want and had better grab quickly before nightfall, but whether there is anything inside me that I have not yet unpacked. I want to be certain that before I fold my hands and step into my coffin what little I can do and say and be is completed.” –Quentin Crisp (via Jonathan Carroll)
I should totally get a tattoo of this one: “By making time to read, like making time to love, we expand our time for living.” — Daniel Pennac (again via Eddie Campbell).
“A consistent artistic vision on a book which is really just a glorified ‘super heroes punch each other over stupid misunderstanding’ story spread out over seven issues and 70+ ancillary titles.” —Dorian Wright reminds me why I don’t read superhero comics
“A society that can breed a hit toy mania has not yet despaired of life.” —Bruce Sterling has a rare moment of hope, over the Wii of all things.
“Our respect for human rights requires us to execute him” — Iraqi President Nouri al-Maliki, coining the 21st century version of “we had to destroy the village in order to liberate it”
“Truth is still truth when it’s uttered by a liar.” —Will Shetterly, explaining why he’s going to worry more about results than motivations. (I’m not sure I’m with him overall–I’m reserving the right to mock
And speaking of Will, let’s pull a bunch of choice quotes from his recent “world week” series, a few selections:
“True wisdom is less presuming than folly. The wise man doubteth often, and changeth his mind; the fool is obstinate, and doubteth not; he knoweth all things but his own ignorance.” —Akhenaton
“You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.” —Naguib Mahfouz
“So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men.” —Voltaire
“I am poor and naked, but I am the chief of the nation. We do not want riches but we do want to train our children right. Riches would do us no good. We could not take them with us to the other world. We do not want riches. We want peace and love.” —Red Cloud
“Those who praise their own doctrines and disparage the doctrines of others do not solve any problem.” —Sutrakritanga 1.1.50 (Jainism)
“If you wish to experience peace, provide peace for another.” —Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama
