things

Sunday, October 02, 2011
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IN LOVE
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When in his eighties Pablo Casals fell in love
with one of his students and wanted to marry her,
his doctor was against it saying it could be dangerous;
to which Casals replied:
“If she dies, she dies.”
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READERS
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Some readers resent the fact that
I refuse to reproduce their sentiments and thoughts.
They believe a writer should be like a secretary –
take dictation.
I see that as another symptom of our sultanism.
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Joseph de Maistre (1753-1821): “I don’t know
what the life of a rogue can be like
since I have never been one;
but the life of an honest man is abominable.”
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Anything that is not worth rereading
can’t be worth writing.
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Monday, October 03, 2011
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DENIALISTS
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Denialists have a powerful argument in their favor:
Everybody lies.
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My aim in life:
to humanize the dehumanized.
Call me a megalomaniac.
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The arrogance of the half-learned:
I know all about that.
I was there once.
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Life’s favorite trajectory:
from arrested development
to advanced degeneration.
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We have been ruled by barbarians
for such a long time that
we don’t mind our own.
Either that or we see them
as the lesser of two evils.
#
Tuesday, October 04, 2011
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AS I SEE IT
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Until very recently,
we, Armenians of the diaspora,
were not allowed to know
the identity of our political leaders;
and now that we know them,
we understand why they preferred to remain anonymous.
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One of the best things about life is that it’s short.
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Actions have consequences,
consequences have repercussions,
repercussions have echoes
and so on ad infinitum.
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Memo to our editors:
silencing writers,
burning books,
burning men,
concentration camps,
gulags:
they all begin with censorship.
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It is impossible to struggle
against the certainties of ignorance
with the doubts of knowledge.
#
Wednesday, October 05, 2011
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ON A VARIETY OF THINGS
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Some of my Turkish readers are outraged
when I criticize Turks.
Like all dictators, Kemal knew that
the only way to be popular
is to flatter the collective ego of the nation.
Which is why most Turks are convinced
they are beyond criticism.
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I don’t always write what I think and feel
because I don’t really know what I think and feel.
All my thoughts and feelings contain
their own deviations as well as contradictions.
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I resent it when someone steals my stolen lines.
I work hard to find lines that are worth stealing.
Let him do the same.
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Here are some aphorisms by Antonio Porchia (1886-1968),
an Argentine writer of Italian descent
who appears to know all about us:
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"Truth has very few friends and those few
are suicides."
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"A door opens to me. I go in and am faced
with a hundred closed doors."
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"You think you are killing me.
I think you are committing suicide."
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"Some things become so completely our own
that we forget them."
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"They will say that you are on the wrong road,
if it is your own."
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