Yquotes.com

 

My deranged mother has written another book. This one is called The Bough and is even worse that the others. I refer not to its quality—it exhibits the usual “coruscating wit” and “penetrating social observation”—but to the extent to which it utilizes, as a kind of mulch pile, the lives of her children.
--
“The Author”, opening; p. 45

 

Donald Barthelme

» Donald Barthelme - all quotes »

Similar quotes

 

The pleasure of the mulch pile is incomprehensible. I wouldn't care if they just hauled the mulch to the landfill somewhere. Obviously, grass clippings are biodegradable, but when they're bunched together at the landfill, they become badly influenced by other garbage.

 

Paula Poundstone

 

The danger is that we shall become a nation of pedants. I use the word literally and democratically to refer to the millions of people who are moved by a certain kind of passion in their pastimes as well as in their vocations. In both parts of their lives this passion comes out in shoptalk. I have in mind both the bird watchers and nature lovers: the young people who collect records and follow the lives of pop singers and movie stars; I mean the sort of knowledge possessed by “buffs” and “fans” of all species—the baseball addicts and opera goers, the devotees of railroad trains and the collectors of objects, from first editions to netsuke.
They are pedants not just because they know and recite an enormous quantity of facts—if a school required them to learn as much they would scream against tyranny. It is not the extent of their information that appalls; it is the absence of any reflection upon it, any sense of relation between it and them and the world. Nothing is brought in from outside for contrast or comparison; no perspective is gained from the top of their monstrous factual pile; no generalities emerge to lighten the sameness of their endeavor.

 

Jacques Barzun

 

“How then?” Taran asked. “Could The Book of Three deceive you?”
“No, it could not.” Dallben said. “The book is thus called because it tells all three parts of our lives: the past, the present, and the future. But it could as well be called a book of ‘if.’ If you had failed at your tasks; if you had followed an evil path; if you had been slain; if you had not chosen as you did — a thousand ‘ifs,’ my boy, and many times a thousand. The Book of Three can say no more than ‘if’ until at the end, of all things that might have been, one alone becomes what really is. For the deeds of a man, not the words of a prophecy, are what shape his destiny.”

 

Lloyd Alexander

 

"There was a book written called The Protocols of Zion [sic]. Now, it was written by the rich guys, but they said, “If this book ever gets found we want to blame it on the Jews.” So they called it Protocols of Zion [sic]. But it’s actually the plan of how to control the world. It’s about seventy some pages, you can, I don’t think you can print it off my website but you can get it in a lot of places. And some people saying, “Hovind, Hovind mentions The Protocols of Zion [sic]. That means he is anti Jewish.” No, I’m not anti Jewish, okay. I love the Jews. But The Protocols of Zion [sic] was written to explain how to control the world, I mean, it lays it all out. But it’s really carefully done so that if it is ever discovered the Jews take the blame for it. Interesting. Well, read the book and see what you think.

 

Kent Hovind

 

Our social relationships are limited, most of the time, to gossip and criticizing people's behavior. This observation slowly pushed me to isolate from the so-called social life. My days pass by in solitude.

 

Ingmar Bergman