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Footnotes Quotes

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Footnotes Quotes

“Much of what I write about is something I experienced and the rest can be found in academic books that are footnoted. What is not usually found in academic books is s-x or s-xual situations. We all know that s-x existed in the past but few writers include it in their books but again don’t look for me to footnote any of these happenings but it’s all true or at least fact based!”

“A fairy ring, it stated, is very much like a doorway, and in several cultures it is perfectly acceptable to knock. Though most American and American-antecedent ethnicities do not practice such summoning, some bargaining cultures did, or do, practice the art. Alaine skimmed several photographs describing Sicilian stories of joining with fairies to battle witches and the Scottish worship of nature spirits, none of which seemed particularly relevant. She was growing frustrated at the author's apparent disregard for the separation between folktale and true practice when the chapter settled on a long description. Recent research into English witch trials have revealed a connection between bargaining culture and some occult forms of practice in which fairies are ritualistically summoned. Though some equate the practice with the concept of a "witch's familiar"... Here Alaine began to skim again until the author found himself back on track. Interviewees from several small villages recall stories that those bold enough to enter a fairy ring could summon a fairy by placing a silver pin in the center of the ring, repeating an incantation such as "a pin to mark, a pin to bind, a pin to hail" (additional variants found in Appendix E), and circling the interior of ring three times. It remains, of course, impossible to test the veracity of such stories, but the consistency of the methodology across geographical regions is intriguing, down to the practice of carrying a small bunch or braid of mint into the ring. Alaine shut the book on her finger, marking the spot. Impossible to rest, indeed. She opened the book again. It began a long ramble detailing various stories of summoning, but Alaine didn't need the repetition to know the method. A short footnote added that Mint appears to serve in the stories as both attractant and repellant for the fairy creatures, drawing them to the summoner but preventing from being taken unwilling into Fae, unlike tobacco and various types of sage, which are merely deterrents.”

“One cannot write about Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell without considering the footnotes. The experienced reader is conditioned to see footnotes as dry, as a way of grounding the text in reality. But footnotes are also an intervention, or intrusion into the flow of the text, and Clarke takes advantage of this figuring. In Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, it is in the footnotes that the world of the fantastic slips through to disrupt the meaning or common understanding of the tale told in the main text. The “explanation” they offer is of worlds slipping between each other, of uncontrolled contact with fairy.”

“Jane and Noah fell silent as she opened it to the first page, a vibrant watercolor of a forest-green shrub laden with dark purple fruits, with the fruits shown in detail in a separate drawing. 'Aristotelia chilensis--- maqui berries,' said Jane. 'Full of antioxidants and touted as a "superfood" now.' There was a note in pencil at the bottom of the page. 'Leaves used for brewing chicha,' Noah read. 'Whatever that is. "Sore throats, heals wounds, painkiller",' he continued. 'Extraordinary. I can't believe the condition it's in. It's scarcely aged at all.' He turned the page to find a painting of a tall, oak-like tree with dark brown bark, oval-shaped green leaves and dense white flowers. 'Quillaja saponaria--- soapbark,' he read. 'Native soap, for the lungs and good health.”

“Every genuinely literary style, from the high authorial voice to Foster Wallace and his footnotes-within-footnotes, requires the reader to see the world from somewhere in particular, or from many places. So every novelist's literary style is nothing less than an ethical strategy - it's always an attempt to get the reader to care about people who are not the same as he or she is.”

“[Footnote:] Pliny the Elder described a Whale called "Balaena or Whirlpool, which is so long and broad as to take up more in length and breadth than two acres of ground." This brings up again the old question: Are the classics doomed? Our ancestors believed that four years of this sort of information would inevitably produce a President, or at least a Cabinet Member. It didn't seem to work out that way.”

“[Footnote:] The female of any species is generally regarded as a relatively anabolic organism, more passive than the male, who is relatively katabolic and active. The fact remains that one frequently runs across a rather katabolic female.”

“I am only a footnote, but proud of the footnote I have become. My subsequent work on eliciting principles and developing the theory of interface design, so that many people will be able to do what I did is probably also footnote-worthy. In looking back at this turn-of-the-century period, the rise of a worldwide network will be seen as the most significant part of the computer revolution.”

“Exceptions to the traditions of dumpy dignity and fake learnedness in law review writing are as rare as they are beautiful. Once in a while a Thomas Reed Powell gets away with an imaginary judicial opinion that gives a real twist to the lion's tail. Once in a while a Thurman Arnold forgets his footnotes as though to say that if people do not believe or understand him that is their worry and not his. But even such mild breaches of etiquette as these are tolerated gingerly and seldom, and are likely to be looked at a little askance by the writers' more pious brethren.”

“Think about it: you've already related it down to something that somebody else can understand. If art relates to something - it's like Picasso, it's like Mondrian - it's not. Art's supposed to be what it is. Using a reference of art history might help for some kind of sales, but it doesn't really help anybody. Art is what it is; it cannot be footnoted, until it enters the world. Then it has a history. Then the footnotes are the history, not the explanation.”

“If I may bend your ear for a moment, I like Terry Pratchett. I like footnotes. I like footnotes even when they are not as entertaining as a Pratchett footnote, even when they are in the middle of a book on evolutionary biology and briefly explain the Red Queen hypothesis or the fate of the Stephen's Island Wren or how many bunnies can dance on the back of Australia. Footnotes fill me with a very mild glee. The endnote simply does not compare.”

“Technique to me is a kind of a ... I'm reluctant to talk about it because it seems so obvious to me what good technique is. I mean, you sit down, you shut up, and you pay attention is basically the good technique. And then the footnotes add; on an empty stomach, in a dark room, feeling comfortable.”