Bilinguals overwhelmingly report that they feel like different people in different languages. It is often assumed that the mother tongue is the language of the true self. […] But, it first languages are reservoirs of emotion, second languages can be rivers undammed, freeing their speakers to ride different currents.
[internautica]
Tagged “quote”
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A Bookmark near the
He loves history. He wanted to write a biography of John Quincy Adams. I, shamefully, knew almost nothing about John Quincy Adams, so I went online and bought every biography of him I could find. One day, he called me, claiming that we wouldn’t work out long term. He said he loved me but that we had different interests. “What does love mean to you?” I said. “That’s an impossible question,” he replied. I, however, find love to be quite simple. Love is the stack of biographies on my nightstand with a bookmark near the end.
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What is it that the child has to teach?
The child naively believes that everything should be fair and everyone should be honest, that only good should prevail, that everybody should have what they want and there should be no pain or sadness. The child believes the world should be perfect and is outraged to discover it is not.
And the child is right.
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You: What is this strange feeling I keep having? This cold... even now?
Shivers: I AM LA REVACHOLIÈRE. I AM THE CITY.
You: What do you mean, you are the city?
Shivers: I AM A FRAGMENT OF THE WORLD SPIRIT, THE GENIUS LOCI OF REVACHOL. MY HEART IS THE WIND CORRIDOR. THE BOTTOM OF MY AIR IS RED. I HAVE A HUNDRED THOUSAND LUMINOUS ARMS. COME MORNING, I CARRY INDUSTRIAL DUST AND LET IT SETTLE ON TREE LEAVES. I SHAKE THE DUST FROM THOSE LEAVES AND ONTO YOUR COAT. I'VE SEEN YOU, I'VE SEEN YOU! I'VE SEEN YOU WITH HER — AND I'VE SEEN YOU WITHOUT HER. I'VE SEEN YOU ON THE CRESCENT OF THE HILL.
You: How are you talking to me?
Shivers: THE MODULATIONS OF MY VOICE ARE NOTED DOWN WITH THERMOMETERS AND BAROMETERS. YOU FEEL ME IN YOUR NOSTRILS, ON THE LITTLE HAIRS ON THE BACK OF YOUR NECK. I ALSO RESIDE IN YOUR LUNGS AND VESTIGIAL ORGANS. EVERYWHERE THERE IS SPACE.
Rhetoric: All this eloquence — it's in service of something. She's afraid.
You: What are you afraid of?
Shivers: DEATH — IT IS TERRIFYING. I NEED YOU TO PROTECT ME FROM DEATH. I CANNOT PERISH. LOOK AT ME. I CANNOT END. IN 22 YEARS, THE FIRST SHOT WILL BE FIRED. NOT A SHOT FROM A GUN — AN ATOMIC DEVICE THAT WILL LEVEL ALL OF ME. ALL OF ME.
You: But... what can I do about it?
Shivers: YOU ARE AN OFFICER OF THE CITIZENS MILITIA. YOU MOVE THROUGH MY STREETS FREELY IN MOTOR CARRIAGES AND ON FOOT. YOU HAVE ACCESS TO THE HIDDEN PLACES. YOU ALSO CIRCULATE AMONG THOSE WHO ARE HIDDEN. I NEED YOU. YOU CAN KEEP ME ON THIS EARTH. BE VIGILANT. I LOVE YOU.
- Shivers
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Some things could only be written in a foreign language; they are not lost in translation, but conceived by it. Foreign verbs of motion could be the only ways of transporting the ashes of familial memory. After all, a foreign language is like art—an alternative reality, a potential world.
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The House will forgive me for quoting myself, but in the course of my life I have developed five little democratic questions. If one meets a powerful person--Adolf Hitler, Joe Stalin or Bill Gates--ask them five questions: "What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid of you?" If you cannot get rid of the people who govern you, you do not live in a democratic system.
- English Labour MP Tony Benn in the House of Commons, 22 march 2001
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Westerners are fond of the saying ‘Life isn’t fair.’ Then, they end in snide triumphant: ‘So get used to it!’ What a cruel, sadistic notion to revel in! What a terrible, patriarchal response to a child’s budding sense of ethics. Announce to an Iroquois, ‘Life isn’t fair,’ and her response will be: ‘Then make it fair!’
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Who doesn't toy with the thought of suicide sometimes? Or, like, most of the time? Okay, maybe some people don't – like the happy scientist girl named Marie, or Jean-Marc, the superstar whom everyone loves. But you -- when the going gets rough, it's nice to think about your little trap door out of here. Do it. Put your finger on the eject button, see how alive it makes you feel -- the freedom of finality. Think of how much they'll miss you.
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If I have one message to give to the secular American people, it's that the world is not divided into countries. The world is not divided between East and West. You are American, I am Iranian, we don’t know each other, but we talk and we understand each other perfectly.
The difference between you and your government is much bigger than the difference between you and me. And the difference between me and my government is much bigger than the difference between me and you. And our governments are very much the same
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The end justifies the means. But what if there never is an end? All we have is means.
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Revloutionary Letter #26
'DOES THE END
JUSTIFY THE MEANS?' this is
process, there is no end, there are only
means, each one
had better justify itself.
To whom?
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I have always known that writing fiction had little effect on the world; that if it did, young men would not have gone to war after The Iliad. Only the privileged - those with homes and food and the luxury of time in a home - are touched, moved, sometimes changed by literature. For the twenty million Americans who are hungry tonight, for the homeless freezing tonight, literature is as useless as a knowledge of astronomy. What do stars look like on a clear cold winter night, when your children are hungry, are daily losing their very health; or when, alone, you look up from a heat grate? Of course in cities at night you can’t even see the stars.
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Many people seem to think it foolish, even superstitious, to believe that the world could still change for the better. And it is true that in winter it is sometimes so bitingly cold that one is tempted to say, ‘What do I care if there is a summer; its warmth is no help to me now.’ Yes, evil often seems to surpass good. But then, in spite of us, and without our permission, there comes at last an end to the bitter frosts. One morning the wind turns, and there is a thaw. And so I must still have hope.
- Vincent van Gogh
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You are inconsistent. You do not need to have a grand unified theory about what to do about Michael Jackson. You are a hypocrite, over and over. You love Annie Hall but you can barely stand to look at a painting by Picasso. You are not responsible for solving this unreconciled contradiction. In fact, you will solve nothing by means of your consumption; the idea that you can is a dead end.
The way you consume art doesn't make you a bad person, or a good one. You'll have to find some other way to accomplish that.