Jenny Diski quotes
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“Everything passes, but nothing entirely goes away.”
-- Jenny Diski -
“It isn't important what you do, it is the attitude with which you proceed through the world that matters.”
-- Jenny DiskiSource : Jenny Diski (2013). “Stranger on a Train: Daydreaming and Smoking Around America with Interruptions”, p.268, Picador
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“But nothing will persuade me that the mere fact of being in a place is enough in itself to justify the effort of getting out of bed to become a tourist, or even a traveller. I don't have the slightest wish to be intrepid. I don't want to prove myself to myself or anyone else. I don't care if no one thinks me brave or hardy. I have no concern at all that I did not have whatever it is I should have had to take a dive out of a plane or off a building. None of that matters to me in the least.”
-- Jenny Diski -
“We were greeted by the minister whose inclusive, non-judgemental smile was no more than a whisker away from a smirk. Have I made it clear? I don't like belief systems and even less like those that peddle self-righteousness. I have no doubt the minister was a sincere man, but I am not as impressed by the idea of sincerity as the sincere seem to be.”
-- Jenny Diski -
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“Statistics are designed to keep you safe.”
-- Jenny DiskiSource : 1997 Skating to Antarctica.
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“For the most part, quantum theory has been of little practical value in my life.”
-- Jenny DiskiSource : 1997 Skating to Antarctica.
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“There's a cultural conviction that any 'artist' must have personal suffering to back up their work, otherwise there's something undeserved and therefore inauthentic about it, perhaps even some sort of cheating.”
-- Jenny Diski -
“There are some words I find impossibly difficult ... 'Love,' 'feeling' and especially 'happiness' are at the head of the list. This is not because I haven't experienced any of them but because whenever I think about using the words I don't really know what anyone means by them. I'd find it easier to sit down and write a book about each (coming, obviously, to no conclusion) than to use them casually in speech or writing.”
-- Jenny Diski -
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“Good writing and dark wit always excite me and they come together thrillingly in this book. It has a quiet grip on the strangeness of the interior and exterior worlds of love and politics. I delighted in the writing and the scope.”
-- Jenny Diski
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Source : Abraham Cowley (2013). “Cowley's Essays”, p.114, Cambridge University Press
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“Nothing is there to come, and nothing past, But an eternal Now does always last.”
Source : Abraham Cowley (1679). “The Works of Mr Abraham Cowley: Consisting of Those which Were Formerly Printed : and Those which He Design'd for the Press”, p.11
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“The time comes upon every public man when it is best for him to keep his lips closed.”
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“Work is hard. Distractions are plentiful. And time is short.”
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