#diversion

This death cult has no reason and is beyond negotiation. This is what makes it so frightening. This is what causes so many to engage in a sort of mental diversion. They don't want to confront this horror. So they rush off in search of more comprehensible things to hate. ↗

— David Brooks

#causes #comprehensible #confront #cult #death

A sensible person does not read a novel as a task. He reads it as a diversion. He is prepared to interest himself in the characters and is concerned to see how they act in given circumstances, and what happens to them; he sympathizes with their troubles and is gladdened by their joys; he puts himself in their place and, to an extent, lives their lives. Their view of life, their attitude to the great subjects of human speculation, whether stated in words or shown in action, call forth in him a reaction of surprise, of pleasure or of indignation. But he knows instinctively where his interest lies and he follows it as surely as a hound follows the scent of a fox. Sometimes, through the author's failure, he loses the scent. Then he flounders about till he finds it again. He skips. ↗

— W. Somerset Maugham

#entertainment #reading #skipping #attitude

I was never jailed. The fact is that I was arrested, but I went into a diversion programme, and by that time I'd already begun working in what was called anger management. It was a painful and awful moment. ↗

— David Soul

#anger #arrested #awful #begun #called

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. ↗

— George Adam Smith

#conspiracy #contrivance #conversation #diversion #ends

Opera is a beautiful and important diversion for me. ↗

— Luciano Pavarotti

#diversion #important #me #opera

I believe the main solution is to gain the trust of Europe and America and to remove their concerns over the peaceful nature of our nuclear industry and to assure them that there will never be a diversion to military use. ↗

— Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani

#assure #believe #concerns #diversion #europe

I knew I was going from the flock of Christ and had no resolution to return, hence serious reflections were uneasy to me, and youthful vanities and diversions were my greatest pleasure. ↗

— John Woolman

#diversions #flock #going #greatest #greatest pleasure

This whole phenomenon of the diversion of organizations from their purposes and ideals does not seem very serious when the scum rise to the top in the bridge club or the offices of a small magazine publisher. ↗

— Robert Shea

#club #diversion #does #ideals #magazine

Attacking a provincial lord in his manor house, surrounded by guards...Honestly, Kell, I'd nearly forgotten how foolhardy you can be. "Foolhardy?" Kelsier asked with a laugh. "that wasn't foolhardy - that was just a small diversion. You should see some of the things I'm planning to do! Dockson stood for a moment then he laughed too. "By the Lord Ruler, it's good to have you back, kell! I'm afraid I've grown rather boring during the last few years" "We'll fix that" Kelsier promised. ↗

— Brandon Sanderson

#dockson #dox #foolhardy #funny #getting-boring

The committee discloses that even after the U.S. government learned of the diversion of U.S. designs for nuclear warheads in late 1995, the Clinton Administration failed to take steps immediately to improve security. ↗

— Charles Foster Bass

#after #clinton #clinton administration #committee #designs