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It’s been a few weeks since our last discussion question, and so I’m excited to get stuck into another debate. One thing I have long been fascinated with is how fiction — i.e. made-up stories — often contain so much capital-T Truth within their pages. So with that in mind, I would love to know:
Which single line from fiction do you think contains the most truth?
I’m not big on superlative “most” debates because it will vary depending on context and life stage, but if I had to pick, I would pick the last sentence of Middlemarch. It’s not pithy--too long for Twitter, but I read it at my mother’s funeral: “But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive, for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on un-historic acts, and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life and rest in unvisited tombs.”
I love last lines of books! Middle March is so full of truth, I had to put it down several times when a character was being so true to themselves, and yet so spiteful, vicious or dumb, I just couldn’t handle it! One of the books I re-read regularly.
What comes to mind is the opening of Anna Karenina: “All happy families are alike. Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” I often find myself pondering this simple, yet profound, truth.
Maybe the buildup to this line is equally important, but Catch 22 is full of great truths and this is one of them -
"So?" Yossarian was puzzled by Doc Daneeka's inability to comprehend. "Don't you see what that means? Now you can take me off combat duty and send me home. They're not going to send a crazy man out to be killed, are they?"
There’s so much madness captured in such a short scene. Absolutely love that book. Don’t think it’ll ever be topped as the funniest book I’ve ever read
I enjoy teaching my English students the meaning and origin of Catch-22 because it's something everyone experiences, no matter the culture. And there are always so many nuances needed to be discussed, especially when relying on translation instead of example.
French has "Cercle vicieux" or "Chose impossible," capturing the idea of a vicious circle or an impossible situation.
German has "Teufelskreis" or "devil's circle," referring to a situation where the solution to a problem creates a new problem, leading to an unending cycle.
Italian: "Incatenato da regole contraddittorie" - Translates to "chained by contradictory rules," conveying the sense of being trapped by conflicting conditions. *I had to look this up (cross-check ChatGPT, to be honest), and now I'm really surprised Heller didn't mention this in the book, given the book's setting.
I also had to look up some outside the Western world. Apparently, the Russian phrase "Замкнутый круг" translates to "vicious circle," and the Japanese "逆説" refers to a paradox or a contradictory statement.
Anyway, just shows all these "Catch 22" situations in Hellen's book seem like universal truths.
No, I haven’t. You motivated me to do it, though. I’m trying to think of a way to connect it to a longer piece or theme I can expand on. I’m currently working on an article about how book-to-screen adaptations can change how we view a culture. Whitewashing, changing dialogue for modern sensibilities, changing scenes for Western sensibilities, etc., The argument is that adapting books from different cultures into Hollywood movies perpetuates American imperialism, and diverse casting is progress but also just a coverup for the deeper issue. I didn’t include Catch-22 in my Notes since it’s an American book adapted by American producers, but maybe I can find a connecting thread. Do you have any ideas?
Sounds fascinating. Yeah I’m not sure Catch-22 would fit into that, and I’d worry you’d dilute the impact of your argument if you introduced this extra idea in there. Perhaps a separate piece on how the bullshit in life is pretty universal, no matter where you’re from/live
I got 8 likes and 2 replies so that’s close enough to 10.
Trigger warning: Ben was quite a ladies man and some things he wrote may not fully sync with modern sensibilities. This is presented purely for literary-historical learning purposes. There is no guarantee, implied or written that any of his commentary reflects actual human experience. Finally, read at your own risk.
“You call this a Paradox, and demand my Reasons. They are these:
1. Because as they have more Knowledge of the World and their Minds are better stor’d with Observations, their Conversation is more improving and more lastingly agreable.
2. Because when Women cease to be handsome, they study to be good. To maintain their Influence over Men, they supply the Diminution of Beauty by an Augmentation of Utility. They learn to do a 1000 Services small and great, and are the most tender and useful of all Friends when you are sick. Thus they continue amiable. And hence there is hardly such a thing to be found as an old Woman who is not a good Woman.
3. Because there is no hazard of Children, which irregularly produc’d may be attended with much Inconvenience.
4. Because thro’ more Experience, they are more prudent and discreet in conducting an Intrigue to prevent Suspicion. The Commerce with them is therefore safer with regard to your Reputation. And with regard to theirs, if the Affair should happen to be known, considerate People might be rather inclin’d to excuse an old Woman who would kindly take care of a young Man, form his Manners by her good Counsels, and prevent his ruining his Health and Fortune among mercenary Prostitutes.
5. Because in every Animal that walks upright, the Deficiency of the Fluids that fill the Muscles appears first in the highest Part: The Face first grows lank and wrinkled; then the Neck; then the Breast and Arms; the lower Parts continuing to the last as plump as ever: So that covering all above with a Basket, and regarding only what is below the Girdle, it is impossible of two Women to know an old from a young one. And as in the dark all Cats are grey, the Pleasure of corporal Enjoyment with an old Woman is at least equal, and frequently superior, every Knack being by Practice capable of Improvement.
6. Because the Sin is less. The debauching a Virgin may be her Ruin, and make her for Life unhappy.
7. Because the Compunction is less. The having made a young Girl miserable may give you frequent bitter Reflections; none of which can attend the making an old Woman happy.
"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us." - Gandalf, The Fellowship of the Ring. Preferably spoken dramatically to the shimmering backdrop of a Howard Shore score.
This has to be the winner of this thread for me. Reminiscent of the line from Shawshank Redemption “Get busy living, or get busy dying.” Or from Kipling’s If, “If you can fill the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds run”. Life’s short, what are you going to do with it! Love that sentiment so much
Very true. I'm currently reading LOTR, by the way. If I had to pick a quote, it would be from the second book, where Sam and Frodo are discussing the old stories and realize that their own quest is part of a bigger, older story.
My third grade teacher at the little country school I attended-9 kids in my class- told us one time, “If you do not learn something new every day, you are just dying!” Scared the dickens out of all of us.
Actually, she was tough on us, but we were tough little ranch kids who were all more familiar with death than most people our age. This woman basically gave me the foundation of what I think and understand about the world. After slogging through reading and writing and subtraction and what not, she taught us color theory, and how to determine what color to use for shadows on drawing of a log depending on the time of day. She made us look at “The Gleaners,” until we felt the hunger and fear of winter coming. She made us look at “The Angelus” until we all knew that it wasn’t just potatoes they were praying over, and we cried, having all lost beloved lambs and puppies and at least one family, a baby brother. She had a Down’s Syndrome child, who was actually in his 20’s when I was in her class. He was mute, but had good receptive language and of course had lived far beyond when they told her he would die, and she brought him to school with her every day, and he sat and listened to the reading and discussions, and scribbled on pieces of waste paper during math, and played outfield for us at recess. If a ball came near him, he would grab it and throw it in the general direction of the pitcher. If a ball went over the fence into the field he would retrieve it for us. If someone fell hard he would try to help. We all paid better attention in class because we had to be at least as well behaved as Jeffie. He expanded our ideas of what it meant to be a human being, watching him make sure his hands were clean when we all came back to class. Our mothers were in awe of her. Years later I got to tell a graduate student teaching art history how wrong he was when he showed us Dali’s version and went with the who “Woman as spider” motif, with showing us the original. I loved that woman, then, and I treasure her memory.
During the war in Mozambique, the little country of Malawi (7 million people at that time), one of the world’s poorest countries, took in more than a million refugees. The north-south road between Blantyre and Lilongwe was the border and I watched refugees cross the road to safety, where they were met by locals who gave them blankets and food.
I always wondered if I had so little, would I give so much of it?
'It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a great fortune must be in want of a wife". - Pride and Prejudice opening line, Jane Austen
(I'm sorry but whenever I heard the words 'truth' and 'in a single line', this is the mental association I have)
Same here - my best line is ‘Aunt Mary has always been a bit lackadaisical.’ From my first short story penned when I was fifteen - it won a county cash prize.
From American Pastoral by Philip Roth, this line is not a universal truth, but it captures so well the dynamic of the Jewish generation of fathers who raised Philip Roth and his contemporaries.
“a father for whom everything is an unshakable duty, for whom there is a right way and a wrong way and nothing in between, a father whose compound of ambitions, biases, and beliefs is so unruffled by careful thinking that he isn’t as easy to escape from as he seems. Limited men with limitless energy; men quick to be friendly and quick to be fed up; men for whom the most serious thing in life is to keep going despite everything. And we were their sons. It was our job to love them.”
Wow. Incredible writing can communicate something across time and distance in a way no other medium can. One feels you understand what his father was like without ever having met him just from reading a short paragraph. Amazing
"cras amet qui numquam amavit quique amavit cras amet"
Which translates roughly to: “Tomorrow let him love, who has never loved; he who has loved, let him love tomorrow.”
It's the final line of The Magus by John Fowles and I was stunned speechless by it when I came to that point after those wild 700 pages, and I still think about it all the time.
“And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”
You know what’s fascinating, 1984 and Animal Farm are regularly among the top selling Western books in China. I wonder if they only think it applies to the Soviet Union, and not the CCP
Yes, you are absolutely correct. I too, believe Westerners and Chinese feel it’s old Coldwar Soviet era peak behind the iron curtain and not a continuous warning and alarm to care for freedom with vigilance and jealousy.
We may not have ‘communism’ or ‘marxism’ or ‘socialism’. technology has enabled many tools and modus operandi and programming techniques to be honed into painless and harmless, nay, beneficial and necessary for safety and security....or health. sigh.
Most people seem to be unable to add up, what seems to me, pretty simple math of the past few years. They can’t apply it to our current deteriorating situation. And the Eugenics and pseudo Cults of TED Talk Bond Villains forcing ‘change’. Did anyone think some ‘free’ countries would spin so swiftly into dystopia.
" To be a man was to be responsible. It was as simple as that. To be a man was to build something, to try to make the world about him a bit easier to live in for himself and those who followed.
You could sneer at that, you could scoff, you could refuse to acknowledge it, but when it came right down to it, Conn decided it was the man who planted a tree, dug a well, or graded a road who mattered." -- Conagher (of course!)
"Intellectual man had become an explaining creature. Fathers to children, wives to husbands, lecturers to listeners, experts to laymen, colleagues to colleagues, doctors to patients, man to his own soul, explained. The roots of this, the causes of the other, the source of events, the history, the structure, the reasons why. For the most part, in one ear out the other. The soul wanted what it wanted. It had its own natural knowledge. It sat unhappily on superstructures of explanation, poor bird, not knowing which way to fly."
Saul Bellow, Mr. Sammler's Planet
Isn't this what we see all around us, with the tons of advice, analyses, commentaries, how-to, frameworks -- my goodness! What about our souls, and our deep knowledge?
“But there’s really no question. It always come down to just two choices. Get busy living or get busy dying”
There’s a lot of great lines on the last page of that story. Darabont wanted to end the movie with the “I hope” line and not show Red and Andy reunited but the studio insisted on the happy ending with the scene on the beach
"There’s truth that’s deeper than experience. It’s beyond what we see, or even what we feel. It’s an order of truth that separates the profound from the merely clever, and the reality from the perception. We’re helpless, usually, in the face of it; and the cost of knowing it, like the cost of knowing love, is sometimes greater than any heart would willingly pay. It doesn’t always help us to love the world, but it does prevent us from hating the world" - Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts.
Ooooo! What a great question. I recently finished "Demon Copperhead," which is FULL of answers to this. Here is one: “A good story doesn’t just copy life, it pushes back on it.” 🥰
She drinks pints of coffee and writes little observations and ideas for stories with her best fountain pen on the linen-white pages of expensive notebooks. Sometimes, when it's going badly, she wonders if what she believes to be a love of the written word is really just a fetish for stationery.
i read all the others wrote before me and every one got a like. it looks like every single person that comment before me had something philosophical in mind. i have something very simple that can be philosophical: the fact that all the good fairy tales stories which every single one of us loved at same stage start with the truth "once upon a time"
" It is necessary to remember that it is first the potential oppressor within that we must resist – the potential victim within that we must rescue – otherwise we cannot hope for an end to domination, for liberation." "Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black", by Bell Hooks.
“There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive. This ecstasy, this forgetfulness of living, comes to the artist, caught up and out of himself in a sheet of flame; it comes to the soldier, war-mad in a stricken field and refusing quarter; and it came to Buck, leading the pack, sounding the old wolf-cry, straining after the food that was alive and that fled swiftly before him through the moonlight.”
I really need to read me some Jack London! Have never read a quote of his that didn’t resonate. In the boring modern language, I guess we’d call what he’s describing here as a ‘peak experience’ - I’ve always found this term too drab to fit what we’re trying to explain. We should come up with a better word for it. Ecstasy feels closer
"Jedi do not fight for peace. That's only a slogan, and is as misleading as slogans always are. Jedi fight for civilization, because only civilization creates peace. We fight for justice because justice is the fundamental bedrock of civilization: an unjust civilization is built upon sand. It does not long survive a storm." Mace Windu, "Shatterpoint", by Matthew Stover.
"At three A.M. I was walking the floor and listening to Khachaturyan working in a tractor factory. He called it a violin concerto. I called it a loose fan belt and the hell with it."
This quote has stayed with me since high school and I'll someday get it tattooed on me:
"'The bird that would soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings.'" (That's technically the one line, it continues with: "It is a sad spectacle to see the weaklings bruised, exhausted, fluttering back to earth.'") from The Awakening by Kate Chopin.
So many people's true potential and power lies outside of the comfort level of both themselves AND those around them--both strangers and loved ones. It was when I read this quote that I truly realized the strength it would take to excel into my own truth. And it's so true for so many others!
“It is useless not to seek, not to want, for when you cease to seek you start to find, and when you cease to want, then life begins to ram her fish and chips down your gullet until you puke, and then the puke down your gullet until you puke the puke, and then the puked puke until you begin to like it.” S (short for sunny) Beckett
This is on the lighthearted side but still rings true, especially for writers!
“Orso ground his teeth, rubbed his forehead, and sighed. To observe someone fumbling around with words and ideas like a schoolboy trying to navigate a woman’s under-robes was akin to swallowing shards of glass.” - Robert Jackson Bennett, Foundryside.
„Don’t think poetry‘s just for sissies. There‘s mushy love poems, for sure, but there‘s also funny ones, lots about nature, war even. Whole point of it - they make ya feel something“- Where the Crawdads Sing from Delia Owens
I love that book and I love that comment about poetry.
As I said to someone last week, I worked in war zones, I drive a diesel pickup, I fly airplanes in the backcountry, l flyfish, I cut my own firewood with a chainsaw, I wear button fly Levi’s, I love dogs, I climb mountains, and I love reading Emily Dickenson’s poetry.
I also believe that if you can’t enjoy a poem by Emily, Tennyson, Shakespeare, Auden, or the little neighbor kid, it’s time to get serious about living a full life.
The risks of failure scarcely bear thinking about, but face them we must. The prize, though, is awesome: nothing less than the secure, long-term flourishing of our precious species.
(1) From Bernard Malamud's The Magic Barrel: "I came to God not because I loved him, but because I did not."
(2) I've seen a few Middlemarch contenders in this thread, but not my personal favorite, which I loved so much I put in my toast at my friend's wedding: "Starting a long way off the true point, and proceeding by loops and zigzags, we now and then arrive just where we ought to be."
(It might be cheating because these are two different lines--in which case, maybe the real winner is what Katie Nolan tells Francie in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn: "There are two truths.")
“The dream of democracy is to raise the proletariat to the level of stupidity attained by the bourgeoisie”. Quoted from Flaubert in Flaubert’s Parrot by Julian Barnes.
I’m not big on superlative “most” debates because it will vary depending on context and life stage, but if I had to pick, I would pick the last sentence of Middlemarch. It’s not pithy--too long for Twitter, but I read it at my mother’s funeral: “But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive, for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on un-historic acts, and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life and rest in unvisited tombs.”
That is so lovely.
I love last lines of books! Middle March is so full of truth, I had to put it down several times when a character was being so true to themselves, and yet so spiteful, vicious or dumb, I just couldn’t handle it! One of the books I re-read regularly.
Yes, I return to Middlemarch every few years, and at each stage of my life, it seems like a new novel to me.
One of my favorites!
YES!!! This one.
What comes to mind is the opening of Anna Karenina: “All happy families are alike. Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” I often find myself pondering this simple, yet profound, truth.
Excellent choice
Yes, definitely
Maybe the buildup to this line is equally important, but Catch 22 is full of great truths and this is one of them -
"So?" Yossarian was puzzled by Doc Daneeka's inability to comprehend. "Don't you see what that means? Now you can take me off combat duty and send me home. They're not going to send a crazy man out to be killed, are they?"
"Who else will go?"
There’s so much madness captured in such a short scene. Absolutely love that book. Don’t think it’ll ever be topped as the funniest book I’ve ever read
I enjoy teaching my English students the meaning and origin of Catch-22 because it's something everyone experiences, no matter the culture. And there are always so many nuances needed to be discussed, especially when relying on translation instead of example.
French has "Cercle vicieux" or "Chose impossible," capturing the idea of a vicious circle or an impossible situation.
German has "Teufelskreis" or "devil's circle," referring to a situation where the solution to a problem creates a new problem, leading to an unending cycle.
Italian: "Incatenato da regole contraddittorie" - Translates to "chained by contradictory rules," conveying the sense of being trapped by conflicting conditions. *I had to look this up (cross-check ChatGPT, to be honest), and now I'm really surprised Heller didn't mention this in the book, given the book's setting.
I also had to look up some outside the Western world. Apparently, the Russian phrase "Замкнутый круг" translates to "vicious circle," and the Japanese "逆説" refers to a paradox or a contradictory statement.
Anyway, just shows all these "Catch 22" situations in Hellen's book seem like universal truths.
Have you written about this before, Nolan? Think that’s worthy of a post
No, I haven’t. You motivated me to do it, though. I’m trying to think of a way to connect it to a longer piece or theme I can expand on. I’m currently working on an article about how book-to-screen adaptations can change how we view a culture. Whitewashing, changing dialogue for modern sensibilities, changing scenes for Western sensibilities, etc., The argument is that adapting books from different cultures into Hollywood movies perpetuates American imperialism, and diverse casting is progress but also just a coverup for the deeper issue. I didn’t include Catch-22 in my Notes since it’s an American book adapted by American producers, but maybe I can find a connecting thread. Do you have any ideas?
Sounds fascinating. Yeah I’m not sure Catch-22 would fit into that, and I’d worry you’d dilute the impact of your argument if you introduced this extra idea in there. Perhaps a separate piece on how the bullshit in life is pretty universal, no matter where you’re from/live
I love that! I think Catch 22 is one of the great existentialist novels that everyone should read. 🙌
Perfect.
Absolute Truth in three little words: "So it goes," by Kurt Vonnegut in "Slaughterhouse Five."
Oh yeah, that’s an excellent choice
“In all your Amours you should prefer old Women to young ones. You call this a Paradox, and demand my Reasons.“
- Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography
(I will share his reasons if I get 10 likes, and his reasons are well worth the effort to give out a like.)
Some might argue that Franklin’s Autobiography is non-fiction. Heh. No autobiography is non-fiction.
No autobiography is non-fiction - love that
I got 8 likes and 2 replies so that’s close enough to 10.
Trigger warning: Ben was quite a ladies man and some things he wrote may not fully sync with modern sensibilities. This is presented purely for literary-historical learning purposes. There is no guarantee, implied or written that any of his commentary reflects actual human experience. Finally, read at your own risk.
“You call this a Paradox, and demand my Reasons. They are these:
1. Because as they have more Knowledge of the World and their Minds are better stor’d with Observations, their Conversation is more improving and more lastingly agreable.
2. Because when Women cease to be handsome, they study to be good. To maintain their Influence over Men, they supply the Diminution of Beauty by an Augmentation of Utility. They learn to do a 1000 Services small and great, and are the most tender and useful of all Friends when you are sick. Thus they continue amiable. And hence there is hardly such a thing to be found as an old Woman who is not a good Woman.
3. Because there is no hazard of Children, which irregularly produc’d may be attended with much Inconvenience.
4. Because thro’ more Experience, they are more prudent and discreet in conducting an Intrigue to prevent Suspicion. The Commerce with them is therefore safer with regard to your Reputation. And with regard to theirs, if the Affair should happen to be known, considerate People might be rather inclin’d to excuse an old Woman who would kindly take care of a young Man, form his Manners by her good Counsels, and prevent his ruining his Health and Fortune among mercenary Prostitutes.
5. Because in every Animal that walks upright, the Deficiency of the Fluids that fill the Muscles appears first in the highest Part: The Face first grows lank and wrinkled; then the Neck; then the Breast and Arms; the lower Parts continuing to the last as plump as ever: So that covering all above with a Basket, and regarding only what is below the Girdle, it is impossible of two Women to know an old from a young one. And as in the dark all Cats are grey, the Pleasure of corporal Enjoyment with an old Woman is at least equal, and frequently superior, every Knack being by Practice capable of Improvement.
6. Because the Sin is less. The debauching a Virgin may be her Ruin, and make her for Life unhappy.
7. Because the Compunction is less. The having made a young Girl miserable may give you frequent bitter Reflections; none of which can attend the making an old Woman happy.
8thly and Lastly They are so grateful!!
I love your last comment
I love the absolute judgement of this:
“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.” ― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey
Going to send this to my brother 😂
I bet we all know someone we could send this to...or more than someone....
I used to know someone who boasted of never reading fiction. I don't know them anymore because they (obviously) were an insufferable twat.
😂
Lol
For me, it's Iris, in Malamud's The Natural: "We have two lives, Roy, the life we learn with and the life we live after that."
I like that a lot
Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Incredible
"It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting." -Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
I’ve never read the Alchemist, though I think I have a dusty copy somewhere
“Everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else.”
DFW, in the eminently quotable 'Infinite Jest'
Ooof that hits
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times....by Charles Dickens.
Dickens knew how to open a book
This was the first that sprung to mind for me, too! What a succinct commentary / prophecy.
That quote is for all times. It's immortal.
And yet, I can never read that without wanting to quote the line from “Cheers”: “He really covered all his bases with that one.”
😂
"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us." - Gandalf, The Fellowship of the Ring. Preferably spoken dramatically to the shimmering backdrop of a Howard Shore score.
This has to be the winner of this thread for me. Reminiscent of the line from Shawshank Redemption “Get busy living, or get busy dying.” Or from Kipling’s If, “If you can fill the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds run”. Life’s short, what are you going to do with it! Love that sentiment so much
Very true. I'm currently reading LOTR, by the way. If I had to pick a quote, it would be from the second book, where Sam and Frodo are discussing the old stories and realize that their own quest is part of a bigger, older story.
My third grade teacher at the little country school I attended-9 kids in my class- told us one time, “If you do not learn something new every day, you are just dying!” Scared the dickens out of all of us.
A new unlocked form of childhood pressure: teacher tells you "you're dying wrong".
Actually, she was tough on us, but we were tough little ranch kids who were all more familiar with death than most people our age. This woman basically gave me the foundation of what I think and understand about the world. After slogging through reading and writing and subtraction and what not, she taught us color theory, and how to determine what color to use for shadows on drawing of a log depending on the time of day. She made us look at “The Gleaners,” until we felt the hunger and fear of winter coming. She made us look at “The Angelus” until we all knew that it wasn’t just potatoes they were praying over, and we cried, having all lost beloved lambs and puppies and at least one family, a baby brother. She had a Down’s Syndrome child, who was actually in his 20’s when I was in her class. He was mute, but had good receptive language and of course had lived far beyond when they told her he would die, and she brought him to school with her every day, and he sat and listened to the reading and discussions, and scribbled on pieces of waste paper during math, and played outfield for us at recess. If a ball came near him, he would grab it and throw it in the general direction of the pitcher. If a ball went over the fence into the field he would retrieve it for us. If someone fell hard he would try to help. We all paid better attention in class because we had to be at least as well behaved as Jeffie. He expanded our ideas of what it meant to be a human being, watching him make sure his hands were clean when we all came back to class. Our mothers were in awe of her. Years later I got to tell a graduate student teaching art history how wrong he was when he showed us Dali’s version and went with the who “Woman as spider” motif, with showing us the original. I loved that woman, then, and I treasure her memory.
That's awesome to have had such an impactful presence.
Ma Joad, Grapes of Wrath:
"If you’re in trouble or hurt or need -- go to poor people. They're the only ones that'll help -- the only ones."(pg 335)
That hits deep, and I’m sure you found that out to be all too true during your aid career.
During the war in Mozambique, the little country of Malawi (7 million people at that time), one of the world’s poorest countries, took in more than a million refugees. The north-south road between Blantyre and Lilongwe was the border and I watched refugees cross the road to safety, where they were met by locals who gave them blankets and food.
I always wondered if I had so little, would I give so much of it?
It was ever thus in my experience
Not like here where they put up signs - no this that or the other here. Frankly I’m ashamed.
'It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a great fortune must be in want of a wife". - Pride and Prejudice opening line, Jane Austen
(I'm sorry but whenever I heard the words 'truth' and 'in a single line', this is the mental association I have)
Well I don’t have a great fortune but I am also in want of a good wife. Who isn’t!
Same here - my best line is ‘Aunt Mary has always been a bit lackadaisical.’ From my first short story penned when I was fifteen - it won a county cash prize.
Congrats!
Cheers! 🥂🍾
From American Pastoral by Philip Roth, this line is not a universal truth, but it captures so well the dynamic of the Jewish generation of fathers who raised Philip Roth and his contemporaries.
“a father for whom everything is an unshakable duty, for whom there is a right way and a wrong way and nothing in between, a father whose compound of ambitions, biases, and beliefs is so unruffled by careful thinking that he isn’t as easy to escape from as he seems. Limited men with limitless energy; men quick to be friendly and quick to be fed up; men for whom the most serious thing in life is to keep going despite everything. And we were their sons. It was our job to love them.”
― Philip Roth, quote from American Pastoral
Wow. Incredible writing can communicate something across time and distance in a way no other medium can. One feels you understand what his father was like without ever having met him just from reading a short paragraph. Amazing
Definitely captures that dynamic, as you say. It's like stoicism on steroids
The father in that book is a great character.
“You're bound to get idears if you go thinkin' about stuff.”
― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
Love that book
"No one forgets the truth; they just get better at lying." Revolutionary Road - Richard Yates
Ooof
"cras amet qui numquam amavit quique amavit cras amet"
Which translates roughly to: “Tomorrow let him love, who has never loved; he who has loved, let him love tomorrow.”
It's the final line of The Magus by John Fowles and I was stunned speechless by it when I came to that point after those wild 700 pages, and I still think about it all the time.
I like that a lot
In the US and other ‘Western’ countries:
“And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”
George Orwell, 1984
You know what’s fascinating, 1984 and Animal Farm are regularly among the top selling Western books in China. I wonder if they only think it applies to the Soviet Union, and not the CCP
Yes, you are absolutely correct. I too, believe Westerners and Chinese feel it’s old Coldwar Soviet era peak behind the iron curtain and not a continuous warning and alarm to care for freedom with vigilance and jealousy.
We may not have ‘communism’ or ‘marxism’ or ‘socialism’. technology has enabled many tools and modus operandi and programming techniques to be honed into painless and harmless, nay, beneficial and necessary for safety and security....or health. sigh.
People can’t think for themselves?!
Most people seem to be unable to add up, what seems to me, pretty simple math of the past few years. They can’t apply it to our current deteriorating situation. And the Eugenics and pseudo Cults of TED Talk Bond Villains forcing ‘change’. Did anyone think some ‘free’ countries would spin so swiftly into dystopia.
" To be a man was to be responsible. It was as simple as that. To be a man was to build something, to try to make the world about him a bit easier to live in for himself and those who followed.
You could sneer at that, you could scoff, you could refuse to acknowledge it, but when it came right down to it, Conn decided it was the man who planted a tree, dug a well, or graded a road who mattered." -- Conagher (of course!)
Of course! But I can see why, that is an excellent quote
"Intellectual man had become an explaining creature. Fathers to children, wives to husbands, lecturers to listeners, experts to laymen, colleagues to colleagues, doctors to patients, man to his own soul, explained. The roots of this, the causes of the other, the source of events, the history, the structure, the reasons why. For the most part, in one ear out the other. The soul wanted what it wanted. It had its own natural knowledge. It sat unhappily on superstructures of explanation, poor bird, not knowing which way to fly."
Saul Bellow, Mr. Sammler's Planet
Isn't this what we see all around us, with the tons of advice, analyses, commentaries, how-to, frameworks -- my goodness! What about our souls, and our deep knowledge?
I think you’re 100% right, it’s everywhere we look
Short version: For the most part, in one ear out the other.
My short version would be the last sentence. But any short version of this perfect passage would be incomplete.
Yours is the better choice.
Having been a teacher I can vouch for that - also the levels of ignorance know no bounds.
“I hope” - Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption - Stephen King
I like that a lot. By the way, is the famous line from the movie in the book? “Get busy living, or get busy dying?”
Yeah. That’s there too.
“But there’s really no question. It always come down to just two choices. Get busy living or get busy dying”
There’s a lot of great lines on the last page of that story. Darabont wanted to end the movie with the “I hope” line and not show Red and Andy reunited but the studio insisted on the happy ending with the scene on the beach
The line that comes to mind is from Siddhartha -" I can think. I can wait. I can fast."
"There’s truth that’s deeper than experience. It’s beyond what we see, or even what we feel. It’s an order of truth that separates the profound from the merely clever, and the reality from the perception. We’re helpless, usually, in the face of it; and the cost of knowing it, like the cost of knowing love, is sometimes greater than any heart would willingly pay. It doesn’t always help us to love the world, but it does prevent us from hating the world" - Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts.
That is fucking excellent
How beautiful
Ooooo! What a great question. I recently finished "Demon Copperhead," which is FULL of answers to this. Here is one: “A good story doesn’t just copy life, it pushes back on it.” 🥰
Heard so many good things about this book, amazing to think it’s only just come out
It’s as good as all that.
I don't know about the *most* truth, but I like this one from Lily King's Writers and Lovers:
' 'I'm trying to ask you out.'
But I can't go out with a guy who's written eleven and half pages in three years. That kind of thing is contagious.'
😂 that’s great
She drinks pints of coffee and writes little observations and ideas for stories with her best fountain pen on the linen-white pages of expensive notebooks. Sometimes, when it's going badly, she wonders if what she believes to be a love of the written word is really just a fetish for stationery.
~ David Nicholls - One Day
I think I might have a fetish for stationary too
Secrets, silent, stony sit in the dark palaces of both our hearts: secrets weary of their tyranny: tyrants, willing to be dethroned.
Ulysses
Woah
i read all the others wrote before me and every one got a like. it looks like every single person that comment before me had something philosophical in mind. i have something very simple that can be philosophical: the fact that all the good fairy tales stories which every single one of us loved at same stage start with the truth "once upon a time"
Great choice
Wunsup Honour Thyme, was the greatest writer ever !!
"History is eternally irresponsible." Machado de Assis in The Epitaph of a Small Winner [the Grossman translation.]
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
Oof love that
" It is necessary to remember that it is first the potential oppressor within that we must resist – the potential victim within that we must rescue – otherwise we cannot hope for an end to domination, for liberation." "Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black", by Bell Hooks.
I remember reading bell hooks at university and it felt like I had been slapped in the face with some truth
I felt the same way when I discovered her.
💯
Always loved this one.
“There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive. This ecstasy, this forgetfulness of living, comes to the artist, caught up and out of himself in a sheet of flame; it comes to the soldier, war-mad in a stricken field and refusing quarter; and it came to Buck, leading the pack, sounding the old wolf-cry, straining after the food that was alive and that fled swiftly before him through the moonlight.”
― Jack London, The Call of the Wild
I really need to read me some Jack London! Have never read a quote of his that didn’t resonate. In the boring modern language, I guess we’d call what he’s describing here as a ‘peak experience’ - I’ve always found this term too drab to fit what we’re trying to explain. We should come up with a better word for it. Ecstasy feels closer
"Jedi do not fight for peace. That's only a slogan, and is as misleading as slogans always are. Jedi fight for civilization, because only civilization creates peace. We fight for justice because justice is the fundamental bedrock of civilization: an unjust civilization is built upon sand. It does not long survive a storm." Mace Windu, "Shatterpoint", by Matthew Stover.
I can hear Samuel L Jackson delivering this line in my mind’s eye. Love me some expanded universe
From The Long Goodbye, by Raymond Chandler:
"At three A.M. I was walking the floor and listening to Khachaturyan working in a tractor factory. He called it a violin concerto. I called it a loose fan belt and the hell with it."
One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain't nothin' can beat teamwork.
Edward Abbey
Too good 😂
'You know know nothing about whereness. The only way to come to know where you are is to begin to make yourself at home.'
George MacDonald (Lilith)
Another from Lilith:
'Thou doubtest because thou lovest truth.'
“If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it.”
-Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon
Tolstoy -- “Happy families are all alike, every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."
The fact someone else said this one shows how deep it hits
When I read that line for the first time, I had to close the book and return to it later.
I'll have to give this some thought.
Best quote in the comments. Where is it from? :)
😂
Worth reflecting on I agreed
This quote has stayed with me since high school and I'll someday get it tattooed on me:
"'The bird that would soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings.'" (That's technically the one line, it continues with: "It is a sad spectacle to see the weaklings bruised, exhausted, fluttering back to earth.'") from The Awakening by Kate Chopin.
So many people's true potential and power lies outside of the comfort level of both themselves AND those around them--both strangers and loved ones. It was when I read this quote that I truly realized the strength it would take to excel into my own truth. And it's so true for so many others!
Love that, thanks for sharing Cierra
Thank you so much!
“It is useless not to seek, not to want, for when you cease to seek you start to find, and when you cease to want, then life begins to ram her fish and chips down your gullet until you puke, and then the puke down your gullet until you puke the puke, and then the puked puke until you begin to like it.” S (short for sunny) Beckett
“Mercy is mightiest in the mightiest.”
So much communicated in just 6 words
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember’d;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.
My favourite Shakespeare play
The St. Crispan speech reminds of Aragon’s speech at the Black Gates of Mordor:
Hold your ground! Hold your ground!
Sons of Gondor, of Rohan, my brothers,
I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me.
A day may come when the courage of men fails,
when we forsake our friends
and break all bonds of fellowship,
but it is not this day.
An hour of wolves and shattered shields,
when the age of men comes crashing down,
but it is not this day!
This day we fight!!
By all that you hold dear on this good Earth,
I bid you stand, Men of the West!!!
Nice long sentence, too. Those are always good. Or did they change all that and long sentences are bad now?
This is on the lighthearted side but still rings true, especially for writers!
“Orso ground his teeth, rubbed his forehead, and sighed. To observe someone fumbling around with words and ideas like a schoolboy trying to navigate a woman’s under-robes was akin to swallowing shards of glass.” - Robert Jackson Bennett, Foundryside.
Feel this one all too deeply!
„Don’t think poetry‘s just for sissies. There‘s mushy love poems, for sure, but there‘s also funny ones, lots about nature, war even. Whole point of it - they make ya feel something“- Where the Crawdads Sing from Delia Owens
They do indeed
I love that book and I love that comment about poetry.
As I said to someone last week, I worked in war zones, I drive a diesel pickup, I fly airplanes in the backcountry, l flyfish, I cut my own firewood with a chainsaw, I wear button fly Levi’s, I love dogs, I climb mountains, and I love reading Emily Dickenson’s poetry.
I also believe that if you can’t enjoy a poem by Emily, Tennyson, Shakespeare, Auden, or the little neighbor kid, it’s time to get serious about living a full life.
“Human beings have a remarkable ability to accept the abnormal and make it normal.”
“We’re as smart as evolution made us. So we’re the minimum intelligence needed to ensure we can dominate our planets.”
― Andy Weir, Project Hail Mary
I found another one last week. It is from The Coming Wave (https://www.amazon.com/Coming-Wave-Technology-Twenty-First-Centurys/dp/B0BVSW143K/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1A4Z22HOECAPT&keywords=the+coming+wave+mustafa+suleyman&qid=1696526493&sprefix=the+coming+%2Caps%2C61&sr=8-1)
The risks of failure scarcely bear thinking about, but face them we must. The prize, though, is awesome: nothing less than the secure, long-term flourishing of our precious species.
That is worth fighting for.
I think someone beat me to it, but the line that came to mind immediately was - “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”
(1) From Bernard Malamud's The Magic Barrel: "I came to God not because I loved him, but because I did not."
(2) I've seen a few Middlemarch contenders in this thread, but not my personal favorite, which I loved so much I put in my toast at my friend's wedding: "Starting a long way off the true point, and proceeding by loops and zigzags, we now and then arrive just where we ought to be."
(It might be cheating because these are two different lines--in which case, maybe the real winner is what Katie Nolan tells Francie in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn: "There are two truths.")
“The dream of democracy is to raise the proletariat to the level of stupidity attained by the bourgeoisie”. Quoted from Flaubert in Flaubert’s Parrot by Julian Barnes.