#ss

The rise to prominence of the Saudi novel in Arabic is the great man-bites-dog of recent world literature. Saudi Arabia is a country without a free press, where European styles and forms are distrusted and where the female half of the population became literate only in this generation. ↗

— James Buchan

#arabic #became #country #distrusted #european

But I was sure of one thing. If God were a father, with children, that cleanliness I had been feeling wasn't God. ↗

— Frances Farmer

#children #cleanliness #father #feeling #god

There are signs that the age of petroleum has passed its zenith. Adjusted for inflation, a barrel of crude oil now sells for three times its long-run average. The large western oil companies, which cartellised the industry for much of the 20th century, are now selling more oil than they find, and are thus in the throes of liquidation. ↗

— James Buchan

#adjusted #age #average #barrel #century

To give money to a woman - and here I must speak as a man - is to deny her special quality, her irreplaceability, and reduce her unique amiability to a commodity. Money takes away her name, while transforming her lover into a nameless customer of a market of appetites. ↗

— James Buchan

#away #commodity #customer #deny #give

What holds an Arab leader in power is a mixture of violence and prestige. Both President Assad and King Hussein were felt to have defended Arab interests against the world. That, in the end, is more important than what they wear on their head. ↗

— James Buchan

#arab #both #defended #end #felt

Men and women should own the world as a mutual possession. ↗

— Pearl S. Buck

#men and women #mutual #own #possession #should

We, who are the living, possess the past. Tomorrow is for our martyrs. ↗

— James L. Farmer, Jr.

#martyrs #our #past #possess #tomorrow

Inner city education must change. Our responsibility is not merely to provide access to knowledge; we must produce educated people. ↗

— James L. Farmer, Jr.

#change #city #educated #educated people #education

When William the Conqueror commissioned a great survey of his English realm at Gloucester in 1085, the result was a work so thorough, fair, dispassionate, and wide-ranging that it seemed to the succeeding generations to have come from another world. ↗

— James Buchan

#come #commissioned #conqueror #dispassionate #english

You think that a wall as solid as the earth separates civilization from barbarism. I tell you the division is a thread, a sheet of glass. A touch here, a push there, and you bring back the reign of Saturn. ↗

— John Buchan

#barbarism #bring #civilization #division #earth