“Many religions now come before us with ingratiating smirks and outspread hands, like an unctuous merchant in a bazaar. They offer consolation and solidarity and uplift, competing as they do in a marketplace. But we have a right to remember how barbarically they behaved when they were strong and were making an offer that people could not refuse.” PeopleHandsRememberStrongAtheismOffersAtheistRefuseUpliftingSolidarityCompetingConsolationMarketplaceMerchantsGod Is Not GreatSmirkBazaars Book:God is Not Great Source: God is Not Great
“If your memory was OK you could descend upon on a bookshop – a big enough one so that the staff wouldn’t hassle a browser – and steal the contents of books by reading them. I drank down 1984 while loitering in the 'O' section of the giant Heffers store in Cambridge. When I was full I carried the slopping vessel of my attention carefully out of the shop.” IfsBookEnoughBigsReadingMemoriesAttentionStoresStealingGiantsShopsStaffSectionsVesselDrankCambridgeBookshopsHassleBrowsers Author:Francis Spufford
“I can always tell when you're reading somewhere in the house,' my mother used to say. 'There's a special silence, a reading silence.” I CanUsedMotherReadingHouseSilenceSpecial Author:Francis Spufford
“She was a committed romantic and an anarcha-feminist. This was hard for her because it meant she couldn't blow up beautiful buildings. She knew the Eiffel Tower was a hideous symbol of phallic oppression but when ordered by her commander to detonate the lift so that no-one should unthinkingly scale an erection, her mind filled with young romantics gazing over Paris and opening aerograms that said Je t'aime.” ShouldMindSaidHardBeautifulYoungBuildingFilledBlowCommittedFeministScalesOpeningOppressionSymbolsLiftsParisTowersCommandersHideousGazingEiffel TowerEiffel Book:Written On The Body Source: Written On The Body
“As a writer, I need an enormous amount of time alone. Writing is 90 percent procrastination: reading magazines, eating cereal out of the box, watching infomercials. It's a matter of doing everything you can to avoid writing, until it is about four in the morning and you reach the point where you have to write. Having anybody watching that or attempting to share it with me would be grisly.” NeedsWritingMatterWould BeReadingMorningFourShareAmountEatingPercentBoxesEnormousMagazinesProcrastinationAttemptingWriter's BlockCerealAlone TimeInfomercialsReading Magazines Author:Paul Rudnick
“I guess I'm just an old mad scientist at bottom. Give me an underground laboratory, half a dozen atom-smashers, and a beautiful girl in a diaphanous veil waiting to be turned into a chimpanzee, and I care not who writes the nation's laws.” GivingWritingCareFunnyBeautifulLawScienceGirlNationsWaitingHalfScientistGive MeMadBottomProfessionI Don't CareIndifferenceAtomsDozenI CareVeilsVocationLaboratoryBeautiful GirlChimpanzeesMad Scientist Author:S. J. Perelman
“To me, poetry is somebody standing up, so to speak, and saying, with as little concealment as possible, what it is for him or her to be on earth at this moment” LittlesMomentsEarthSpeakStandingPoetry IsConcealment Author:Galway Kinnell
“Happy Valentines Day to those who have found love, in whatever shape or form, and to those who are still hunting, don't give up. If you feel bad, send yourself a card. You must be worth it.” IfsLoveGivingFeelsStillsFormFoundShapesGiving UpCardsHuntingWorth ItValentineValentine's DayI Love YouDon't Give UpHappy ValentinesFound LoveHappy Valentines Day Author:Jeanette Winterson
“Knock, And He'll open the door Vanish, And He'll make you shine like the sun Fall, And He'll raise you to the heavens Become nothing, And He'll turn you into everything.” InspirationalReligionTurnsFallSpiritualityHeavenSunDoorsPositiveRaisesShiningIslamSufi Author:Rumi
“Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage! Blow! You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout Till you have drenched our teeples, drowned the cocks! You sulphurour and thought-executing fires, Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts, Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder, Strike flat the thick rotundity o' the world! Crack nature's molds, all germens spill at once That make ingrateful man!” MenWorldWhiteFireWindBlowStrikesRageFlatsCracksThickCheeksThunderShakingMoldOaksSpillsLearExecutingThunderboltsCleavingVaunt Author:William Shakespeare