literary quote of the day (10/2/10)

He saw that no sin was too monstrous for him to claim as his own, and since God loved in proportion as He forgave, he felt ready at that instant to enter Paradise.

Flannery O'Connor, "The Artificial Nigger"

october

October
And the trees are stripped bare
Of all they wear
What do I care
October
And kingdoms rise
And kingdoms fall
But you go on
And on

literary quote of the day (9/30/10)

Now that I'm dead I know everything. This is what I wished would happen, but like so many of my wishes it failed to come true. I know only a few factoids that I didn't know before. It's much too high a price to pay for the satisfaction of curiosity, needless to say.

Since being dead--since achieving this state of bonelessness, liplessness, breastlessness--I've learned some things I would rather not know, as one does when listening at windows or opening other people's letters. You think you'd like to read minds? Think again.

Margaret Atwood, The Penelopiad

song of the harlot

"When I read the Bible, I find that I relate to the sinners, more than I relate to the saints."

Michael Pritzl, The Violet Burning


"Ditto"

Robby Prenkert, 'everything and nothing'

literary quote of the day (9/29/10)

"Good!" Johnson said savagely. He thrust his head forward. "Listen here," he hissed, "I don't care if he's good or not. He ain't right!"

Flannery O'Connor, "The Lame Shall Enter First" (Rufus Johnson speaking)

a second literary quote for today (9/28/10)

'Why is it that really beautiful people think everyone else in the world exists merely for their amusement?'

Margaret Atwood, The Penelopiad


p.s. Is it bad that my blog is made up now almost entirely of words penned by authors I force 19 year olds to read in my classes?

literary quote of the day (9/28/10)

you're so far away
and i won't see you any day soon
we came a long way
and now you want to fly to the moon
all alone going your own way
i thought i owned your love
and now you say

ache, ache beautiful for me
go along and ache
ache beauty babe

Michael Roe, "Ache Beautiful"

literary quote of the day (9/27/10)

What we, or at any rate what I, refer to confidently as memory—meaning a moment, a scene, a fact that has been subjected to a fixative and thereby rescued from oblivion—is really a form of storytelling that goes on continually in the mind and often changes with the telling. Too many conflicting emotional interests are involved for life ever to be wholly acceptable, and possibly it is the work of the storyteller to rearrange things so that they conform to this end. In any case, in talking about the past we lie with every breath we draw.

—William Maxwell, So Long, See You Tomorrow


(Salvador Dali, "The Persistence of Memory")

literary quote of the day (9/26/10)

In the Palace at 4 A.M. you walk from one room to the next by going through the walls. You don't need to use the doorways. There is a door, but it is standing open, permanently. If you were to walk through it and didn't like what was on the other side you could turn and come back to the place you started from. What is done can be undone. It is there that I find Cletus Smith.

William Maxwell, So Long, See You Tomorrow