#no

While we are looking for the antidote or the medicine to cure us, that is, the 'new', which can only be found by plunging deep into the Unknown, we have to go on exploring sex, books, and travel, although we know that they lead us to the abyss, which, as it happens, is the only place where the antidote can be found. ↗

— Roberto Bolaño

#bolano #books #literature-and-illness #sex #travel

Because I do not wish to know,” he says. “I prefer to remain unenlightened, to better appreciate the dark. ↗

— Erin Morgenstern

#appreciation

Every time you drink a glass of milk or eat a piece of cheese, you harm a mother. Please go vegan. ↗

— Gary L. Francione

#animal-products #dairy #exploitation #francione #milk

All sentient beings should have at least one right—the right not to be treated as property ↗

— Gary L. Francione

#abolitionist #ahimsa #ethical #francione #moral-imperative

Not all men (and especially the wisest) share the opinion that it is bad for women to be educated. But it is very true that many foolish men have claimed this because it displeased them that women knew more than they did. ↗

— Christine de Pizan

#education #empowerment #inequality #knowledge #men

You’re impinging on my private space,” I said, inching backward. Patch gave a barely-there smile. "Impinging? This isn’t the SAT, Nora. ↗

— Becca Fitzpatrick

#patch #sat #space

Hey, what is it with you? Why are you so spaced out? You still haven't answered me." I probably still haven't completely adapted to the world," I said after giving it some thought. "I don't know, I feel like this isn't the real world. The people, the scene: they just don't seem real to me." Midori rested an elbow on the bar and looked at me. "There was something like that in a Jim Morrison song, I'm pretty sure." People are strange when you're a stranger. ↗

— Haruki Murakami

#norwegian-wood #space

Who is wise? He that learns from everyone. Who is powerful? He that governs his passions. Who is rich? He that is content. Who is that? Nobody. ↗

— Benjamin Franklin

#everyone #governs #his #learns #nobody

The family is the cradle of the world’s misinformation. There must be something in family life that generates factual error. Over-closeness, the noise and heat of being. Perhaps even something deeper like the need to survive. Murray says we are fragile creatures surrounded by a world of hostile facts. Facts threaten our happiness and security. The deeper we delve into things, the looser our structure may seem to become. The family process works towards sealing off the world. Small errors grow heads, fictions proliferate. I tell Murray that ignorance and confusion can’t possibly be the driving forces behind family solidarity. What an idea, what a subversion. He asks me why the strongest family units exist in the least developed societies. Not to know is a weapon of survival, he says. Magic and superstition become entrenched as the powerful orthodoxy of the clan. The family is strongest where objective reality is most likely to be misinterpreted. What a heartless theory, I say. But Murray insists it’s true. ↗

— Don DeLillo

#hostile-facts #white-noise #family

In terms of size, mammals are an anomaly, as the vast majority of the world's existing species are snail-sized or smaller. It's almost as if, regardless of your kingdom, the smaller your size & the earlier your place on the tree of life, the more critical is your niche on Earth: snails & worms create soil, & blue-green algae create oxygen; mammals seem comparatively dispensable, the result of the random path of evolution over a luxurious amount of time. ↗

— Elisabeth Tova Bailey

#natural-history #non-fiction #life