In lieu of smoky jazz clubs, Parisian garrets and unsuitable boys, Simon took me out for birthday tapas last night and I got a bit more drunk than I meant to. I did achieve the inappropriate skirt and the whisky, though. Sadly, the whisky was just part of a cocktail in a very wanky hipster …
The reason I decided to write about her in À la recherche du temps perdu is because she is the only person I know who really understands time. Old Jiko is supercareful with her time. She does everything really really slowly, even when she’s just sitting on the veranda, looking out at the dragonflies spinning …
Continue reading A Tale for the Time Being – Ruth Ozeki – Quotes
it was easy to agree with the German poet Heinrich Heine, who allegedly said that if a war ever broke out he would head straight for the Netherlands, because 'everything happens fifty years later there'. Initially, I had been under the vague impression that it was one of those eco-friendly countries where environmental protection was …
Continue reading Why the Dutch are Different – Ben Coates – Quotes
Some people acquire the travel bug. Others are born with it. My affliction, if that’s what it is, went into remission for many years following my aborted expedition with Drew. It resurfaced after college with renewed fury. I desperately wanted to see the world, preferably on someone else’s dime. But how? I had no marketable …
Continue reading The Geography of Bliss – Eric Weiner – Quotes
But why are trees such social beings? Why do they share food with their own species and sometimes even go so far as to nourish their competitors? The reasons are the same as for human communities: there are advantages to working together. A tree is not a forest. On its own, a tree cannot establish …
Continue reading The Hidden Life of Trees – Peter Wohlleben – Quotes
There is really nothing more to say - except why. But since why is difficult to handle, one must take refuge in how. They lived there because they were poor and black, and they stayed there because they believed they were ugly. Although their poverty was traditional and stultifying, it was not unique. But their ugliness was …
Brains are individual phenomena producing wildly varying products; uteruses bring forth one kind of creation. Maybe our obsession with happiness is a way not to ask those other questions, a way to ignore how spacious our lives can be, how effective our work can be, and how far-reaching our love can be. Masculinity is a …
Continue reading The Mother of All Questions: Further Feminisms – Rebecca Solnit – Quotes
