#o

The United States is the wealthiest nation in the history of the world, yet its inhabitants are strikingly unhappy. Accordingly, we present to the rest of mankind, on a planet rife with suffering and tragedy, the spectacle of a clown civilization. Sustained on a clown diet rich in sugar and fat, we have developed a clown physiognomy. We dress like clowns. We move about a landscape filled with cartoon buildings in clownmobiles, absorbed in clownish activities. We fill our idle hours enjoying the canned antics of professional clowns... Death, when we acknowledge it, is just another pratfall on the boob tube. Bang! You're dead! ↗

— James Howard Kunstler

#clown #clowns #community #social-criticism #the-united-states

The Actor, noticing a closed bookshop, dismounted from the horse which he tied to a street lamp. He woke up the bookseller and bought a Spanish grammar and dictionary. He set out again across town marveling at the way that the words of the foreign language were freshly gathered fruits and not old and dry. They touched the senses marvelously, new like young beggars who accost you, not yet words but the every things they designate, happily running naked before being clothed again in abstraction. ↗

— Georges Limbour

#words #design

The noble simplicity in the works of nature only too often originates in the noble shortsightedness of him who observes it. ↗

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

#nature #noble #observes #often #only

Virtue by premeditation isn't worth much. ↗

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

#premeditation #virtue #worth

Family traditions counter alienation and confusion. They help us define who we are; they provide something steady, reliable and safe in a confusing world. ↗

— Susan Lieberman

#confusing #confusion #counter #define #family

I don't use old music. ↗

— Gyorgy Ligeti

#music #old #old music #use

They all in general had putrid gums, the spots and lassitude, with weakness of their knees. ↗

— James Lind

#had #knees #spots #their #weakness

I'm a romantic, and I like guys to bring flowers and buy some gifts - not expensive things, just romantic things. ↗

— Bai Ling

#buy #expensive #flowers #gifts #guys

I think I'm part of a generation of crime writers all of whom woke up independently and recoiled with horror at the fact that we'd chosen this very conservative genre. ↗

— Laura Lippman

#conservative #crime #fact #generation #genre

Live constructively and live optimistically. ↗

— Alfred A. Montapert

#live