“They go to Paris to learn how to make bombs and they come back having learned only how to write poetry, which they think is more explosive.” WritingInspirationPoetryPower Of WordsWriting InspirationWords Have PowerPower Of PoetryExplosive PoetryLife And Poetry Book:Solo Source: Solo
“Reality is never clear, said Boris. It's never final. You can always change it or see it a different way.” InspirationalChangeVisionReality Of LifeIllusionsWay Of Seeing ThingsNothing Is Clear Book:Solo Source: Solo
“He was like the other half of myself,' says Boris...Ulrich says, 'You haven't lost {him}, you know. I don't know if it helps to say that. I lost a friend once myself, and I know how it goes. 'He'll find his way inside you, and you'll carry him onward. Behind your heartbeat, you'll hear another one, faint and out of step. People will say you are speaking his opinons, or your hair has turned like his. 'There are no more facts about him -- that part is over. Now is the time for essential things...Gradually you'll grow older than him, and love him as your son. 'You'll live astride the line that separates life from death. You'll become experienced in the wisdom of grief. You won't wait until people die to grieve for them; you'll give them their grief while they are still alive, for then judgment falls away, and there remains only the miracle of being.” LoveFriendshipGriefDevotionGrievingConnectionMissing SomeoneKindred Spirits Book:Solo Source: Solo
“They said, Now we are capitalists! but all Ulrich could see was criminality to a principle.” LifeCapitalismModernityCorruption Politics Book:Solo Source: Solo
“As one unusually self-critical textile factory owner observed to me, reflecting on the system in which she played a nodal role, "There used to be a time when you could be a capitalist with personality. You could make your own decisions about what kind of ethos you wanted to create. Now it does not matter if you are a 'nice' person. It is completely irrelevant. We live in an age hen we all know what we do is disgusting but we still carry on doing it. The system we are part of feeds on desperation. And any system that demands such levels of desperation will produce more and more disorder, and the only way to keep everything in check will be the increasing militarisation of the world.” CapitalismIndiaExploitationSweatshopsShock Doctrine Book:Capital: The Eruption of Delhi by Rana Dasgupta (6-Mar-2014) Hardcover Source: Capital: The Eruption of Delhi by Rana Dasgupta (6-Mar-2014) Hardcover
“(Ulrich, 100 year old Bulgarian man): in Solo, by Rana Dasgupta "Ulrich has sometimes wondered whether his life has been a failure. Once he would have looked at all this and said yes. But now he does not know what it means for a life to succeed or fail. How can a dog fail its life, or a tree? A life is just a quantity; and he can no more see failure in it than he can see failure in a pile of earth, or a bucket of water. Failure and success are foreign terms to such blind matter." (p. 160)” Success Author:Rana Dasgupta
“How many stopped-up men and women does it take to produce one Einstein? Ten? A thousand? A hundred thousand? ... So this is what Einstein meant when he looked me in the eye that day and said, I would be nothing without you. It was not success he saw written in my face. He saw, rather, that I would never accomplish anything at all.” SuccessFailureGeniusEinsteinOrdinariness Book:Solo Source: Solo
“When they brought in communism it was for the people, so they killed the people. Now they've brought in capitalism, which is for the rich, so they only kill the rich. This time you and I have nothing to worry about.” DeathPoliticsCapitalismMurderModernityCapitalism And Death Book:Solo Source: Solo
“You'll live astride the line that separates life from death. You'll become experienced in the wisdom of grief. You won't wait until people die to grieve for them; you'll give them their grief while they are still alive, for then judgment falls away, and there remains only the miracle of being.” PeopleGivingStillsDiesFallWaitingLinesGriefAliveJudgmentMiracleRemainsGrieving Book:Solo Source: Solo
“I feel that the single-minded pursuit of wealth has led the middle classes into a crisis.” FeelsWealthClassMiddleCrisisPursuitMiddle ClassPursuit Of Wealth Author:Rana Dasgupta