“In fact, if one has not the imagination to create characters, to knit plots, it does no good to jot down fragments of life and conversation, for alone they are disjointed and meaningless. It is only when these bits are woven into an artistic whole, with a frame of reference, that they become meaning-ful and worthy of more than a cursory glance, ( Read more... )

“I venture to say (and this opinion has forty years of research behind it) that the queen’s pawn openings have contributed as many masterpieces and as many genuine brilliancies as did any of the kingside openings.”-- Irving Chernev, “Logical Chess: Move by Move ( Read more... )

I have yet to read any of the books of Henry Miller, including "Tropic of Cancer", and now it's getting late enough that I doubt I ever will, but he is on my mountainous 'wanna read' stack. His novels are apparently autobiographical portraits of his life in its various stages, which is not really a big selling point, but he gives a good interview ( Read more... )

“The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. … I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.”

-- Thomas Jefferson (1785)

“I will tell the truth. A large majority of people in the Southern ( Read more... )

"In a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between the man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity ... there is a direct connection between ( Read more... )

“We must realize that in each one of us there are two ruling and impelling principles whose guidance we follow, a desire for pleasure, which is innate, and an acquired conviction which causes us to aim at excellence.”-- Plato, “Phaedrus ( Read more... )

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I recently discovered that somebody uploaded to YouTube the movie "Full Body Massage" (1995) starring Mimi Rogers and Bryan Brown. It's one of my favorties that haven't seemed to make it across the digital/Internet divide. At least I have found it harder to come by. I'll get down a couple of quotes from it.

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"There is but one ( Read more... )

Having come across Mr. Tartakower in my chess reading, I looked him up and saw a number of good quotes from him at his Wikipeia page, and I am going to keep some of them.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<"Tactics is what you do when there is something to do; strategy is what you do when there is nothing to do ( Read more... )

"O my soul, do not aspire to immortal life, but exhaust the limits of the possible."

-- Pindar

[Source: Albert Camus, "The Myth of Sisyphus and other essays"]