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writing“All cities are mad: but the madness is gallant. All cities are beautiful: but the beauty is grim.”
Christopher Morley, American editor and writer
“I min mormors matsal stod ett vitrinskåp och i skåpet fanns en skinnbit. Den var inte stor men tjock och läderaktig med grova, röda hårstrån.”
Bruce Chatwin, “I Patagonien”
“Oil kindles extraordinary emotions and hopes, since oil is above all a great temptation. It is the temptation of ease, wealth, strength, fortune, power. It is a filthy, foul-smelling liquid that squirts obligingly up into the air and falls back to earth as a rustling shower of money. To discover and possess the source of oil is to feel as if, after wandering long underground, you have suddenly stumbled upon royal treasure. Not only do you become rich, but you are also visited by the mystical conviction that some higher power has looked upon you with the eye of grace and magnanimously elevated you above others, electing you its favorite.”
Ryszard Kapuscinski, “Shah of Shahs”
“There’s no such thing as a born writer. It’s a skill you’ve got to learn, just like learning how to be a bricklayer or a carpenter.”
Larry Brown, amerikansk författare, 1951-2004
“I like to find (a) simple solutions (b) to overlooked problems that actually need to be solved, and (d) deliver them as informally as possible, (e) starting with a very crude version 1, then (f) iterating rapidly.”
Paul Graham
“Beauty is the first test: there is no permanent place in this world for ugly mathematics.”
G. H. Hardy, “A Mathematician’s Apology”
“My definition of an expert in any field is a person who knows enough about what’s really going on to be scared.”
P.J. Plauger
“Many photographs preserve the moment when the first oil spurts from the well: people jumping for joy, falling into each other’s arms, weeping.
Oil creates the illusion of a completely changed life, life without work, life for free. Oil is a resource that anesthetizes thought, blurs vision, corrupts. People from poor countries go around thinking: God, if only we had oil! The concept of oil expresses perfectly the eternal human dream of wealth achieved through lucky accident, through a kiss of fortune and not by sweat, anguish, hard work. In this sense oil is a fairy tale, and like every fairy tale, a bit of a lie. Oil fills us with such arrogance that we begin believing we can easily overcome such unyielding obstacles as time.”
Ryszard Kapuscinski, “Shah of Shahs”
“En bok är aldrig slutgiltigt färdigskriven. Till en verkligt stor bok bidrar mänsklighetens historia med sin egen smärta.”
Louis Aragon
“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”
John Stuart Mill