My reading of late has been about as scattered as everything else going on in the holidays. I have a host of books that I am picking up and reading for a little bit and then picking up another one. The holiday grind seems to have significantly shortened my attention span, and courage as I am only reading books that have proven themselves and I know that I will enjoy them. This has left me with only snippits of several books. So here are the little quotes that I liked, taken out of the context for which the authors worked so hard to build. They are still good though.

“The good of a book is in its being read. A book is made up of signs that speak of other signs which in their turn speak to things. Without an eye to read them, a book contains signs that produce no concepts, therefore it is dumb”

The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco

Probably my current favorite quote about writing

“He was a ritual tea smoker and very puritanical about junk the way some teaheads are. He claimed tea put him in touch with supra blue gravitational fields.”

Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs

This book was put into my hands by one of my favorite customers, I am finally working into it. It will put hair somewhere on your body…probably the bottom of your foot or something.

“The hidden life of love is in the most inward depths, unfathomable, and still has an unfathomable relationship with the whole of existence. As the quiet lake is fed deep down by the flow of hidden springs, which no eye sees, so a human being’s love is grounded, still more deeply, in God’s love.”

Works of Love, Soren Kierkegaard

Lately I have liked learning that I don’t know.

“The consciousness of having something to say as the consciousness of nothing: not the poorest but most oppressed of consciousness.”

Writing and Difference, Jacques Derrida

-John P.

 

 

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