Friday, September 30, 2011

"The boys in Golding’s novel [Lord of the Flies] are not unsupervised. They are absolutely alone. There is no home to go to, no school, no church. There are no adults to turn to, to allay their fears. Death looms nearby. Under such circumstances they naturally form alliances, and those, so far as they are acts of the imagination, are good and natural things. The same may be said for the city gang. It is not that these boys spend too much time outside of the home. It is that they have no genuine home to spend time outside of." - Anthony Esolen in Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child
"I read science fiction the way I read cookbooks. I get all the way through, shut the book and say, 'Yeah, like that's ever gonna happen.'"
Seen on T-shirts at a pirate-themed party:
***
Underneath a skull and crossbones: “Nautical Acquisition & Redistribution Specialist”
“The danger of leaving people with doubts they did not previously have is only equal to the danger of leading people to certainties they did not earn.”
"As for Lawrence — on behalf of whom Eliot was a witness at the trial for alleged obscenity in Lady Chatterly’s Lover — 'It would seem that for Lawrence any spiritual force was good, and that evil resided only in the absence of spirituality. . . . The man’s vision is spiritual, but spiritually sick'.” – Russell Kirk, from T. S. Eliot on Literary Morals
"Sanctify yourself and you will sanctify society." - St. Francis of Assisi
“Tolkien understands the deepest of our longings and makes us understand them better than before: To have a home. To be expected. To be welcomed from the night into the warm circle of firelight. To be loved and to love. To hold an innocent child and to see the promise of a future in that smiling face.” - Mark T. Mitchell, from The Beauty of Tolkien’s Quest
“Truth comes in two formats: enlightenments and collisions with reality.” - unknown

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Amatuers practice until they get it right. Professionals practice until they can't get it wrong.