#lists

It follows that the one thing we should not do to the men and women of past time, and particularly if they ghost through to us as larger than life, is to take them out of their historical contexts. To do so is to run the risk of turning them into monsters, whom we can denounce for our (frequently political) motives—an insidious game, because we are condemning in their make-up that which is likely to belong to a whole social world, the world that helped to fashion them and that is deviously reflected or distorted in them. Censure of this sort is the work of petty moralists and propagandists, not historians (p. 5). ↗

— Lauro Martines

#context #historians #history #memory #moralists

Like most novelists, I like to do exactly the opposite of what I'm told. It's in my nature as a novelist. Novelists can't trust anything they haven't seen with their own eyes or touched with their own hands. (Jerusalem Prize acceptance speech, JERUSALEM POST, Feb. 15, 2009) ↗

— Haruki Murakami

#truth #writers #writing #nature

But if subjective pietism is not the real crux of this all-important Gospel, if it is instead belief in the plan of salvation, how are we not dealing with "salvation by (cognitive) works" and Gnosticism (salvation by special knowledge)? Fundamentalists hotly deny it, but isn't it finally a matter of believers in the right religion being saved and everyone else being disqualified? ↗

— Robert M. Price

#gnosticism #salvation #religion

These romantic visions of the peasantry were constantly undone by contact with reality, often with devastating consequences for their bearers. The populists, who invested much of themselves in their conception of the peasants, suffered the most in this respect, since the disintegration of that conception threatened to undermine not only their radical beliefs but also their own self-identity. ↗

— Orlando Figes

#populists #respect

The split in America, rather than simply economic, is between those who embrace reason, who function in the real world of cause and effect, and those who, numbed by isolation and despair, now seek meaning in a mythical world of intuition, a world that is no longer reality-based, a world of magic. ↗

— Chris Hedges

#christianity #dominionism #dominionists #evangelists #fascism

Military people never seem to apologize for killing each other yet novelists feel ashamed for writing some nice inert paper book that is not certain to be read by anybody. ↗

— Leonora Carrington

#military #novelists #writing #military

Ugly people kill people all the time. But when pretty people did, it got attention. ↗

— Chelsea Cain

#serial-killers #suspense #journalist

As touchy as cabaret performers and as stubborn as factory machinists.... ↗

— Tom Rachman

#journalists #newspapers #journalist

Only people with full stomachs become environmentalists. ↗

— David Brin

#environmentalism #environmentalists #logistics #people #practicality

Short-story writing requires an exquisite sense of balance. Novelists, frankly, can get away with more. A novel can have a dull spot or two, because the reader has made a different commitment. ↗

— Lynn Abbey

#balance #because #commitment #different #dull