#sk

Floating in the sky, which was just beginning to turn pink, was a large, oblong cross about which flew several silent crows, like a sinister flock of winged coffins. ↗

— Agustin Espinosa

#cross #crow #sky #surreal #surreal

She's a skank. He's a player. He's cute but almost OD'd last year, so he's a bad bet. She's a two-faced, lying, cheating witch. That's right, Trina, I'm talking to you," she shouted. "By the way," she added just for me, "Trina cusses, which means cussing is trashy, which means my golden rule is to never cuss. I have class. Unlike Trina, the skank of Birmingham." The last part was, of course, shouted. ↗

— Gena Showalter

#skank #trina #cheating

I wasn't a misanthrope and I wasn't a misogynist but I liked being alone. It felt good to sit alone in a small space and smoke and drink. I had always been good company for myself. ↗

— Charles Bukowski

#space

Are you really surprised by the endurance of religion? What ideology is likely to be more durable than one that conforms, at every turn, to our powers of wishful thinking? Hope is easy; knowledge is hard. Science is the one domain in which we human beings make a truly heroic effort to counter our innate biases and wishful thinking. Science is the one endeavor in which we have developed a refined methodology for separating what a person hopes is true from what he has good reason to believe. The methodology isn't perfect, and the history of science is riddled with abject failures of scientific objectivity. But that is just the point-these have been failures of science, discovered and corrected by-what, religion? No, by good science. ↗

— Sam Harris

#science #skepticism #religion

You're not Dostoevsky,' said the citizeness, who was getting muddled by Koroviev. Well, who knows, who knows,' he replied. 'Dostoevsky's dead,' said the citizeness, but somehow not very confidently. 'I protest!' Behemoth exclaimed hotly. 'Dostoevsky is immortal! ↗

— Mikhail Bulgakov

#fame #immortality #reputation #confidence

..people would like to think there's somebody up there who knows what he's doing. Since we don't participate, we don't control and we don't even think about the questions of crucial importance, we hope somebody is paying attention who has some competence. Let's hope the ship has a captain, in other words, since we're not taking in deciding what's going on. I think that's a factor. But also, it is an important feature of the ideological system to impose on people the feeling that they are incompetent to deal with these complex and important issues; they'd better leave it to the captain. One device is to develop a star system, an array of figures who are often media creations or creations of the academic propaganda establishment, whose deep insights we are supposed to admire and to whom we must happily and confidently assign the right to control our lives and control international affairs. ↗

— Noam Chomsky

#ideology

At that time the only treatment of angelism, that is, excessive abstraction of the self from itself, was recovery of the self through ordeal. ↗

— Walker Percy

#whiskey #recovery

Sex, whatever else it is, is an athletic skill. The more you practice, the more you can, the more you want to, the more you enjoy it, the less it tires you. ↗

— Robert A. Heinlein

#practice #sex #skills #cat

Different authors have different points of view. You can't just say, 'I believe in the Bible. ↗

— Bart D. Ehrman

#bible #criticism #literature #skepticism #atheism

Holy freak show! ↗

— Becca Fitzpatrick

#humour #vee-sky #humour