Random quotes. . .

scrawled on bits of paper and found on the bookshelves this weekend:

A Postmortem Guide
by Stephen Dunn

Tell them I had second chances.
I knew joy.
I was burned by books early
and kept sidling up to the flames.

And

Literature annuls the borders drawn on maps, and also the borders that cut through our consciousness. Literature builds a bridge to one's other self, the alienated self. It throws us together. It turns us into accomplices. It evokes empathy in us.

--Gunter Grass

And

the suspicion or shiver of intimation

--J. Crowley

And

Henry James' most basic assumption: "life is in essence consciousness and interpretation, not action" and the fight for commercial advantage.

--Stephen Metcalf

And

We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: The only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.

--George Orwell