From Russian Fairy Tales
I got a book of Russian Fairy Tales and I particularly like how some of them end. I can't be sure that any of these are authentic translations, but they are original (compared to Happily Ever After).
- There's a tale for you and a crock of butter for me.
- I was there and drank mead and wine; it ran down my moustache, but did not go into my mouth.
- Prince Ivan married Princess Martha and they began to live and chew bread together.
And here are some things said within a fairy tale.
- After some time, a long time, or a short time...
- I will take you, put you on one palm and clap with the other. There will be nothing left of you but a moist spot.
By John Updike
I don't generally like John Updike, I find him somewhat pretentious. But here's one quote I like when I feel like my life changes too quickly.
- That a marriage ends is less than ideal; but all things end under heaven, and if temporality is held to be invalidating, then nothing real succeeeds.
And here's one I like for the imagery and language.
- That adultery is not one but several species. The adultery of the freshly married is a gaudy-winged disaster, a phoenix with hot ashes, the revelation that one has mischosen, a life-swallowing mistake has been made. Help, help, its not too late, the babies scarcely know their father, the wedding presents still unscarred, the mistake can be unmade, another mate can be chosen and the universe as dragon can be slain. Murders, abductions and other fantasies flit into newspaper print from the hectic habitat of this species.
The adultery of the hopelessly married, the couples in their thirties with slowly growing children and slowly dwindling mortgages, is a more stolid and more domestic creature, a beast of burden truly, for this adultery sweves the purpose of rendering tolerable the unalterable. The flirtation at the benefit dance, the lunch invitation stammered from a company phone, the clock conscious tryst in the noontime motel, the smuggled letters, the pained and sensible breakup - these are rites of marriage, holidays to be harried, yet touchingly, not often understood as such by the participants who flog themselves with blame while they haul each other's bodies into place as sandbags against the swamping of their homes.
The adultery of those in their forties recovers a certain lightness. A greyhound skittishness and peacock sheen. Children leave; Parents die; money descends; nothing is as difficult as it once seemed. Separation arrives by whim (the last dessert dish broken, the final intolerable cigar burn on the arm chair) or marriages are extended by surrender. The race between freedom and exhaustion is decided. And then, in a relgious sense, there is no more adultery, as there is none among school children, or slaves, or the beyond-all-reckoning rich.
Wow, that was long huh. Let's stick to the shorter quotes from now on...
Dorothy Parker
So she's pretty dark and suicidal. What talented female didn't have a reason to be blackly moody back then? I think I read somewhere that she said this about
Atlas Shrugged.
- This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.
And here is a poem called
Resume which provides a decent amount of motivation for living.
- Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.
Miscellaneous
- It is clear that things cannot be other than the way they are; for as all things have been created for some end, they must necessarily be
created for the best end. For instance, noses were made to support spectacles, hence we wear spectacles. Legs, as anyone can see, were made for breeches,
and so we wear breeches. Stones were made to be shaped into castles; thus My Lord has a fine castle because the greatest baron in the province ought to have the
finest house. And because pigs were made to be eaten, we eat pork all year round. So those who say that everything is well are speaking foolishly;
they should say that everything is best. -- hopeless Dr. Pangloss from Voltaire's Candide, teacher of metaphysico-theologo-cosmolo-nigology