“To walk into Bill Olsen's poems is to enter a mind so weirdly curious, you can't be released to sadness, not yet: it's just too surprising. But this book-half microscope, half telescope-shadows grief, our shared and ordinary life where an old neighbor obsessively gathers twigs to wish back the tree, where the moon is regularly ‘sawn in half,’ where sprinklers give off ‘little wet speeches.’ What else? It's brilliantly instead and odd.” GivingMindLittlesBookWishWalksGriefHalfTreeSadnessMoonSpeechOrdinaryShadowBillsNeighborCuriousOddSurprisingWetOrdinary LifeTelescopesMicroscopesTwigs Author:Marianne Boruch
“It is a little surprising given the strength of the economy that there is a perception - at least among some of the public - that the economy is not very good.” LittlesGivenEconomyPerceptionVery GoodSurprising Author:Edward Lazear
“It's not surprising, therefore, that the [Bisy] Backson thinks of progress in terms of fighting and overcoming. One of his little idiosyncrasies, you might say. Of course, real progress involves growing and developing, which involves changing inside, but that's something the inflexible Backson is unwilling to do.” ThinkingLittlesRealMightFightingCoursesTermGrowingProgressOvercomingDevelopingSurprisingUnwillingIdiosyncrasies Author:Benjamin Hoff
“That something so obvious as the vanity of the world should be so little recognized that people find it odd and surprising to be told that it is foolish to seek greatness; that is most remarkable.” PeopleWorldShouldLittlesGreatnessObviousFoolishVanityOddRemarkableSurprising Book:Pascal Pensées Source: Pascal Pensées
“What I had not counted on was discovering how closely a man could come to dying and still not die, or want to die. That, too, was mine; and it also is to the good. For that experience resolved proportions and relationships for me as nothing else could have done; and it is surprising, approaching the final enlightenment, how little one really has to know or feel sure about.” KnowsMenWantFeelsLittlesStillsDoneDiesDyingMinesEnlightenmentFinalsProportionSurprisingDiscoveringWanting To Die Book:Alone: The Classic Polar Adventure Source: Alone: The Classic Polar Adventure