“We can never leave loneliness behind completely - it is part of what forms us.” Quote by Thomas L. Dumm
“One of the reasons I always come back to representations of loneliness in plays, films, and literature is that they give us specific examples of the powerful hold that it has on us, and yet, paradoxically, by representing what can't really be represented, so to speak, they give us ways of going forward even as we fall apart.” WayGivingReasonPlayFilmFallLiteratureSpeakPowerfulLonelinessExampleRepresentationFalling ApartRepresenting Author:Thomas L. Dumm
“I worry that we don't currently have a democracy in the United States. Instead we have what [political philosopher] Sheldon Wolin has recently labeled a sort of inverted totalitarianism.” StatesPoliticalUnitedWorryUnited StatesDemocracyPhilosopherTotalitarianismInverted Author:Thomas L. Dumm
“Worldwide, the twentieth century has seen the rise of extraordinary concentrations of economic and political power - evoking the people as the source of power while simultaneously privatizing its most meaningful exercise. Democracy always seems to be at least slightly elusive under such conditions.” PeopleSeemsPoliticalDemocracyEconomicConditionsCenturySourceExerciseExtraordinaryMeaningfulConcentrationTwentieth CenturyElusivePolitical PowerMost Meaningful Author:Thomas L. Dumm
“None of us is perfect, but the point of our writing is to try to become better, to learn something that we may not have already realized, about ourselves, about the world we inhabit.” WorldWritingTryingMayPerfect Author:Thomas L. Dumm
“In one of my favorite anecdotes about Foucault, someone asks him why he writes books. He responds by saying something like "When I begin to write a book, I do not know how it will come out, what it will say in the end. If I already did, I wouldn't need to write it."” IfsKnowsNeedsWritingBookEndsAsksKnow HowMy FavoriteAnecdotes Author:Thomas L. Dumm
“Of course, each of us has to write our own book, live our own life.” WritingBookCourses Author:Thomas L. Dumm
“It is an admonition to myself when I am reading other people's books. Writing a book is very difficult to do, even a bad one. I try to remember that when reading someone else's work.” PeopleWritingTryingBookRememberReadingDifficultWriting A BookBook WritingAdmonition Author:Thomas L. Dumm
“I look back on some of my early reviews of others, and realize to my chagrin that I've been as guilty as anybody else on that front.” LooksRealizingFrontsGuiltyReviewsChagrin Author:Thomas L. Dumm
“As lovers of truth, we want to be close to it. Sometimes - evil thought, evil temptation - we want to be close to it by misleading others about its presence.” WantSometimesEvilLoversTemptationMisleadEvil Thoughts Author:Thomas L. Dumm
“Terrorism is a state of mind that on the one hand has to do with ignorance and, on the other hand, can be attributed to a feeling of desperation over the political situation, which at some point takes the form of revenge.” MindStatesFeelingsHandsFormPoliticalSituationIgnoranceTerrorismRevengeState Of MindDesperation Author:Bashar al-Assad