#lines

My peers, lately, have found companionship through means of intoxication - it makes them sociable. I, however, cannot force myself to use drugs to cheat on my loneliness - it is all that I have - and when the drugs and alcohol dissipate, will be all that my peers have as well. ↗

— Franz Kafka

#cannot #cheat #companionship #dissipate #force

Television, despite its enormous presence, turns out to have added pitifully few lines to the communal memory. ↗

— Justin Kaplan

#communal #despite #enormous #few #lines

I've also seen that great men are often lonely. This is understandable, because they have built such high standards for themselves that they often feel alone. But that same loneliness is part of their ability to create. ↗

— Yousuf Karsh

#alone #also #because #built #create

I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart's affections, and the truth of imagination. ↗

— John Keats

#am #certain #heart #holiness #i

I have two luxuries to brood over in my walks, your loveliness and the hour of my death. O that I could have possession of them both in the same minute. ↗

— John Keats

#brood #could #death #hour #i

If you take different mythologies from different cultures, the names may change and the story lines may vary but there is always something in common. ↗

— Maynard James Keenan

#change #common #cultures #different #different cultures

If, by the virtue of charity or the circumstance of desperation, you ever chance to spend a little time around a Substance-recovery halfway facility like Enfield MA's state-funded Ennet House, you will acquire many exotic new facts [...] That certain persons simply will not like you no matter what you do. Then that most nonaddicted adult civilians have already absorbed and accepted this fact, often rather early on [...] That sleeping can be a form of emotional escape and can with sustained effort be abused [...] That purposeful sleep-deprivation can also be an abusable escape. That gambling can be an abusable escape, too, and work, shopping, and shoplifting, and sex, and abstention, and masturbation, and food, and exercise, and meditation/prayer [...] That loneliness is not a function of solitude [...] That if enough people in a silent room are drinking coffee it is possible to make out the sound of steam coming off the coffee. That sometimes human beings have to just sit in one place and, like, hurt [...] That there is such a thing as raw, unalloyed, agendaless kindness [...] That the effects of too many cups of coffee are in no way pleasant or intoxicating [...] That if you do something nice for somebody in secret, anonymously, without letting the person you did it for know it was you or anybody else know what it was you did or in any way or form trying to get credit for it, it's almost its own form of intoxicating buzz. That anonymous generosity, too, can be abused [...] That it is permissible to want [...] That there might not be angels, but there are people who might as well be angels. ↗

— David Foster Wallace

#alienation #kindness #loneliness #food

This diagnosis can be done in about two lines. It doesn't engage anybody. ↗

— David Foster Wallace

#anybody #diagnosis #done #engage #lines

Ray Charles' revolutionary approach to music was also reflected in his politics and his deep and abiding commitment to Martin Luther King and the plight of African-Americans. Ray Charles may not have been on the front lines, but he put his money where his mouth was. ↗

— Diane Watson

#approach #been #charles #commitment #deep

Then as now, whatever disagreements over policies existed among Americans - and there were many such bitter policy disputes - the purposes and goals for which Americans fought were clearly understood. ↗

— Allen Weinstein

#administration #american #american people #archivist #essentially