Quote for Today: Rex Stout
The only difference between me and most people is that I’m perfectly aware that all my important decisions are made for me by my subconscious. My frontal lobes are just …
Quote for Today: Doris Lessing
All sanity depends on this: that it should be a delight to feel the roughness of a carpet under smooth soles, a delight to feel heat strike the skin, a …
Quote for Today: Benjamin Franklin
Like a man travelling in foggy weather, those at some distance before him on the road he sees wrapped up in the fog, as well as those behind him, and …
Quote for Today: Joseph Conrad
It is not the clear-sighted who rule the world. Great achievements are accomplished in a blessed, warm fog. —Joseph Conrad
Rooted in Loneliness: Thoughts on Ray Bradbury’s The Fog Horn
Art, like life, relies on communication. What happens when empathy fails and we are struck by how unintelligible we are? Sometimes it seems that the only thing we can share …
Quote for Today: Kazuo Ishiguro
I’m interested in memory because it’s a filter through which we see our lives, and because it’s foggy and obscure, the opportunities for self-deception are there. In the end, as …
Moments from Other Lives: Thoughts on Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore
Are you attracted to characters and story lines that surprise you? Life doesn’t always make sense and neither does art. Many literary works are peopled with stereotypes and follow formulae which …
Quote for Today: Carl Sagan
We are the only species on the planet, so far as we know, to have invented a communal memory stored neither in our genes nor in our brains. The warehouse …
Quote for Today: Stuart Dybek
“I had this sudden awareness,” she continues, “of how the moments of our lives go out of existence before we’re conscious of having lived them. It’s only a relatively few …
Staring Into the Looking Glass: Creative People and Narcissism
Creative people are often accused of narcissism. Can we alter the negative stereotypes and bad behavior associated with artists? Greek mythology tells the story of Narcissus, a young hunter who …