shop talk

Thursday, May 15, 2008
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SHOP TALK
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The trouble with me as a writer is that, unlike our Turcocentric ghazetajis who write about nothing else but massacres, bloodthirsty Asiatic barbarians, atrocities, and unspeakable crimes against humanity, I have an eye only for the dark side of life. I stress the negative in human nature and completely ignore the positive.
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An Armenian poetess calls to inform me she is donating the royalties of her next book to Etchmiadzin. I don’t have the heart to tell her I have been in this business for a quarter of a century and I have never heard of an Armenian writer who has made two cents from royalties. But I suspect she already knows. Armenians have an amazing gift for pretending not to know the obvious.
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In a letter from a friend: "If, as you say, Armenian literature is a dead end, why not give up writing?"
I write for two totally non-literary reasons: to fight boredom and to acquire friends; and with every book I have published, I have acquired a new friend; also (alas!) two, and sometimes even twenty-two, enemies.
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Friday, May 16, 2008
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RANDOM THOUGHTS
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Chekhov: "Love, friendship, respect do not unite people as much as common hatred for something." Our leadership has known this for some time; hence, their unspoken slogan: "There is no business like shoah business."
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What divides a nation is neither theology nor ideology but leaders who consider their own powers and privileges more important than the survival of the nation.
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Where there is an Armenian church you will also find a wealthy dupe with a guilty conscience.
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A fellow Armenian (a white-haired no-nonsense type) knocks on my door, introduces himself, barges in, and demands to know if I am really an atheist. I tell him, I don’t believe in he god of our priests. He is too puzzled by my answer to pursue the matter. What I fail to add is that, the true atheist is he who uses someone else’s crucifixion to make a comfortable living.
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If a man is open to ruin, he will be ruined by success as easily as by failure.
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Saturday, May 17, 2008
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NOTES / COMMENTS
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If we cannot trust experts, historians, religious leaders and politicians on the grounds that they contradict one another, whom can we trust? The answer must be obvious: nobody! Not even our own judgment. We may however mistrust less those who deal in doubts and probabilities as opposed to certainties and dogmas.
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To be against objectivity is to be for deception.
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Love of God and Country become pathological aberrations when they find expression only in hatred for the enemy and fellow countrymen who do not share our hatred.
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Honesty is a career in which the failures outnumber the successes.
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It’s because they want to silence me that I keep talking. On the day they shut up, I will sing my swan song.
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