#lit

Is everyone with one face called a Milo?" "Oh no," Milo replied; "some are called Henry or George or Robert or John or lots of other things." "How terribly confusing," he cried. "Everything here is called exactly what it is. The triangles are called triangles, the circles are called circles, and even the same numbers have the same name. Why, can you imagine what would happen if we named all the twos Henry or George or Robert or John or lots of other things? You'd have to say Robert plus John equals four, and if the four's name were Albert, things would be hopeless." "I never thought of it that way," Milo admitted. "Then I suggest you begin at once," admonished the Dodecahedron from his admonishing face, "for here in Digitopolis everything is quite precise. ↗

— Norton Juster

#mathematics #names #equality

There are more ideas on earth than intellectuals imagine. And these ideas are more active, stronger, more resistant, more passionate than "politicians" think. We have to be there at the birth of ideas, the bursting outward of their force: not in books expressing them, but in events manifesting this force, in struggles carried on around ideas, for or against them. Ideas do not rule the world. But it is because the world has ideas (and because it constantly produces them) that it is not passively ruled by those who are its leaders or those who would like to teach it, once and for all, what it must think. ↗

— Michel Foucault

#elitism #intellectualism #politics #populism #imagination

Jokes are many things. 'Funny' is only one of them. ↗

— Melinda Chapman

#humor #language #politics #funny

Sometimes two people have to fall apart, to realize how much they need to fall back together. ↗

— Colleen Hoover

#love #love

I think imagination is at the heart of everything we do. Scientific discoveries couldn't have happened without imagination. Art, music, and literature couldn't exist without imagination. And so anything that strengthens imagination, and reading certainly does that, can help us for the rest of our lives. ↗

— Lloyd Alexander

#imagination #literature #music #reading #science

Serious literature does not exist to make life easy but to complicate it. ↗

— Witold Gombrowicz

#writing-craft-talent #life

[T]here is no such thing as a homosexual or a heterosexual person. There are only homo- or heterosexual acts. Most people are a mixture of impulses if not practices, and what anyone does with a willing partner is of no social or cosmic significance. ↗

— Gore Vidal

#home

Chances are if you find yourself caught up in a political foofaraw at work, or in some family squabble at home, it's because someone else is succeeding in convincing you that his problem is your problem. The non-self-destructor recognizes this and as soon as possible, gives the sleepless night back to the person to whom it belongs. ↗

— Jason Seiden

#hyperviligance #letting-go #responsibility #someone-else-s-problem #family

I don't buy junk. When I buy something, it's got to be perfection or I don't want it. You won't find me coming home with five cheap suits, one for each day of the week. I'd rather have one perfect suit or none. ↗

— Nancy Horan

#quality #home

If you abandon the political arena, somebody is going to be there. Corporations aren't going to go home and join the PTA. They are going to run things. ↗

— Noam Chomsky

#politics #home