Nietzche

I know this is not news, but some people have some amazingly screwed up ideas about what Nietzsche was trying to say.  When I began reading The Birth of Tragedy and talked about it excitedly one day at work, a friend actually told me that it was important to "remember my values" and seemed genuinely worried that I might be converted or something.  Converted to what, I don't know.  Knowing this friend as I did, I can only assume that she was afraid reading Nietzsche would single-handedly alter my belief in a higher power.  I don't think I'm wrong in also assuming that she never read any of Nietzsche's books.

I am now nearing the end of the books I have and will have to search out the others.  After making it through The Birth of Tragedy, the Aphorisms, Beyond Good and Evil, On the Genealogy of Morals, and The Case of Wagner, I can say that the first was my least favorite.  Maybe because it seems the least accessible and definitely requires a second (third, fourth?) examination.  After slowly devouring over 700 pages of Nietzsche, I can honestly say I'm excited to start all over again.  It's really not about what he thinks; it's about the things he gets me to think about.  The ultimate test to become any favorite of mine.

Favorite Quotes from Books

These quotes were all lovingly compiled, in an actual notebook, during 2008.  I decided not to buy any more books until I had the space for more bookshelves and needed a way to record favorite passages from the library books I checked out each week. 

Can a man who's warm understand one who's freezing?

A convict's thoughts are no freer than he is:  they come back to the same place, worry over the same thing continually.  Will they poke around in my mattress and find my bread ration?  Can I get off work if I report sick tonight?  Will the captain be put in the hold or won't he?  How did Tsezar get his hands on a warm vest?  Must have greased somebody's palm in the storeroom, what else? 

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1963)

There is no such thing as natural law: the expression is merely a hoary piece of stupidity well worthy of the Advocate-General who hunted me down the other day, and whose ancestor was made rich by one of Louis XIV's confiscations.  There is no law, save when there is a statute to prevent one from doing something, on pain of punishment.  Before the statute, there is nothing natural save the strength of the lion, or the wants of the creature who suffers from hunger, or cold; in a word, necessity... No, the men whom we honour are merely rascals who have had the good fortune not to be caught red-handed.  The accuser whom society sets at my heels has been made rich by a scandalous injustice.
Stendhal, The Red and the Black (1926)

Until then I had thought each book spoke of the things, human or divine, that lie outside books.  Now I realized that not infrequently books speak of books:  it is as if they spoke among themselves.  In the light of this reflection, the library seemed all the more disturbing to me.  It was then the place of a long, centuries-old murmuring, an imperceptible dialogue between one parchment and another, a living thing, a receptacle of powers now to be ruled by a human mind, a treasure of secrets emanated by many minds, surviving the death of those who had produced them or had been their conveyors.
Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose (1980)

Above all, my dear - these minor matters are well within my scope, and I think I may stress the things I can be said to know about - be neither trivial, nor over-zealous, nor trusting - three great pitfalls!  Too many confidences diminish respect, triviality earns us contempt, zealousness makes us excellent targets for exploitation.  Besides, dear child, you will not have more than two or three friends in the course of your life, your entire trust is your gift to them.  Are you not betraying them if you give it to all and sundry?
Balzac, Lily of the Valley (1835)

The sun had moved; it was colder, and I stood up, pulled my jacket on and went down the path, walked home.  Like the time when.  Like the time.  Like.  There was no stopping it.  All the way down the path my head was full of the dried leaves I'd kicked into a mess.  There was no stopping it and there was no getting near it.  You say something's like something else, and all you've really said is that actually, because it's only like it, it's different.
Ali Smith, Like (1996)

Truth was that she'd never have that look of the people who participate in the society of the Nevers:  Never go to Europe.  Never buy a piece of property.  Never own a firsthand car.  Never sit by a nineteenth-century French writing desk at the Armory show, scribbling out checks without a single doubt.  Never sigh with confusion over the abundance of travel brochures that the agency had sent over to you, when you'd simply inquired about an interesting place to go for a quick rest.  Never receive a handwritten note of thanks from the maitre d' of a major restaurant complimenting you for your generosity over the past year.  Never eat in a fancy restaurant.  Never get seen by a doctor immediately.  Never go to a Broadway show.  Never stay in a decent hotel.  Never stop adding up the price of things.  Never stop saving your pennies.  Never dream of a retirement that brings more than the social security check.  Never forget about betting the long shots at the race track; never stop buying the lottery tickets, or playing the numbers.  Never sit for single moment after work and breathe a sigh of relief that the bad day you just had, with the floor manager threatening to fire you because your coffee break was too long, or because you did not let him take you in his office, would never happen again.  Never find that the everyday struggles of your life would fold over into some happy existence (outside of death).  Never make the society pages.  Or the newspapers unless you are murdered or rob a bank or become a famous baseball player or boxer.  Never understand how all this happened to you.  And:  even if things were to change, never lose the bitterness of the poor.
Oscar Hijuelos, Empress of the Splendid Season (1999)

"Because I don't want to remember," he answered.  "If I did, I might keep the future from happening by letting the past encroach upon it.  I create each hour's newness by forgetting yesterday completely.  Having been happy is never enough for me.  I don't believe in dead things.  What's the difference between no longer being happy and never having been?"
Andre Gide, The Immoralist (1902)

Yes, and was it not perhaps more childlike and human to lead a Goldmund-life, more courageous, more noble perhaps in the end to abandon oneself to the cruel stream of reality, to chaos, to commit sins and accept their bitter consequences rather than live a clean life with washed hands outside the world, laying out a lonely harmonious thought-garden, strolling sinlessly among one's sheltered flower beds.  Perhaps it was harder, braver and nobler to wander through forests and along the highways with torn shoes, to suffer sun and rain, hunger and need, to play with the joys of the senses and pay for them with suffering.
Hermann Hesse, Narcissus and Goldmund (1930)

"Why not?  A Democrat by day and a Republican in my spare time.  By the way, how are you registered?"  Boz shrugged. "What difference does it make if you don't vote?"  "Stop feeling sorry for yourself."
Thomas Disch, 334 (1974)

Now a man appears on his own, he must be singing although his lips scarcely move, the caption gave the name Leonard Cohen, and the image looks fixedly at Raimundo Silva, the movements of his mouth articulate a question, why won't you listen to me, lonely man, no doubt adding, Listen to me while you can, before it's too late... Raimundo Silva bent over, turned on the sound, Leonard Cohen made a gesture as if to thank him, now he could sing, and sing he did, he sang of things only someone who has lived can sing of, and asks himself how much and for what, someone who has loved and asks himself who and why, and, having asked all these questions, he can find no answer, not one, contrary to the belief that all the answers are there and that all we have to do is to learn how to phrase our questions.
Jose Saramago, The History of the Siege of Lisbon (1989)

That's the way it is when you love.  It makes you suffer, and I have suffered much in the years since.  But it matters little that you suffer, so long as you feel alive with a sense of the close bond that connects all living things, so long as love does not die!  I would gladly exchange every happy day in my life, all my infatuations and great plans, provided I could exchange them for gazing deeply once more into this most sacred experience.  It bitterly hurts your eyes and heart, and your pride and self-esteem don't get off scot-free either, but afterwards you feel so calm and serene, so much wiser and alive.
Hermann Hesse, Peter Camenzind (1953)