Category: Books
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Collected quotes, 5 of n
We’ve been losing too many good people this year. Within a little more than a week of each other, bell hooks and Joan Didion both passed away — staggering losses in a time that’s already taken far too much. Both of these writers have shaped so much of my perspective on the world, so I…
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Collected quotes, 4 of n
He had so much to give—stories, reflection, engagement—that somehow none of us ever noticed just how much he was withholding. He could love everybody on the terms on which they needed to be loved, give everybody what they needed to receive; and so, in the end, none of us really knew him. I’ve come to…
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Collected quotes, 3 of n
Geometry has nothing to do with it. It’s all about finding perfection, and perfection can’t be found in something as rigid as geometry. You have to find it elsewhere, in between the lines. Agnes Martin. as quoted in this newsletter I have had to learn how to manage — to be a functioning person while…
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Collected quotes, 2 of n
Things don’t have purposes, as if the universe were a machine, where every part has a useful function. What’s the function of a galaxy? I don’t know if our life has a purpose and I don’t see that it matters. What does matter is that we’re a part. Like a thread in a cloth or…
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Collected quotes, 1 of n
All these clocks, like the whole information industry today, run the risk of no longer communicating anything because they tell too much. But they also possess another characteristic of the information industry: they no longer speak of anything except themselves and their internal functioning. Eco, Umberto. “How Not to Know the Time.” How to Travel…
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Home and the city
I’ve been working my way through Reportage on Crime, an anthology of Nick Joaquin’s true crime stories. One such piece, “The Lodger,” deals with the demographic shift in Manila brought on by the influx of laborers (and their families) from the provinces. I don’t have the same intimate understanding of Manila as Nick Joaquin does,…
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