comment

[arabaliozian]

Re: comment

ON SURVIVAL
***************************
The only way to survive in this world
is to prove to someone that
you can be useful to him.
To what possible use is a writer
who refuses to flatter the colossal egos
of moneyed idiots?
*
One of our political parties
invested a great deal of money
to support Zarian and his family
on the grounds that
“If we treat him right
he may come to our side.”
He didn’t.
He went further and insulted them by saying:
“Our political parties have been
of no political use to us.
Fear of free speech is their greatest enemy.”
*
In an environment controlled
by habitual and compulsive liars,
it is a serious blunder to speak the truth.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: comment

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
***************************************
Armenian values?
There are none.
They don’t exist.
Hence our endless disagreements
and contradictions.
*
What is “Armenian” about most Armenians?
We might as well be Zulus with computers,
Turks minus Kemal,
and Neanderthals without a country.
*
You want to know why I am against patriotism?
I disagree with an ideology that legitimizes
intolerance and cannibalism.
*
Falling in love is the closer we will ever get
to understand the nature of black magic
and the condition of terminal disease.
*
The biggest mistake an Armenian can make
is to assume that if the other is an Armenian
he can be trusted.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: comment

REFLECTIONS
****************************
There is not one big truth
but countless little ones
that when added result in zero.
*
Love and hate may well be
products of misinformation.
*
There is nothing new under the sun.
The universe existed in God
long before He crated it.
*
We, the 99%, may be wrong
but they are never right.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: comment

BELIEVE NOTHING
YOU ARE TOLD
************************************
Homeland: a distant abstraction
and an unattainable goal.
*
No man can be as boring as he
who has seen the light
and wants you to join his club.
*
After you speak the truth
don’t say “See you later”
but “Goodbye.”
*
I was born and raised in a Greek slum
in time of war and I have lived
in a middle-class American neighborhood.
Slum is better.
*
We like to believe that which we believe
must be true.
*
A readable lie is preferable
to an unreadable truth.
#

[lampron]

Re: comment

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
***************************************
The biggest mistake an Armenian can make
is to assume that if the other is an Armenian
he can be trusted.
#

very good point!
Armenian traders in foreign countries rely on foreigners for business not on trade within their own Armenian community

Foreigners, including Ottomans had observed this

[arabaliozian]

Re: comment

AS I SEE IT
*****************************
Who says we agree on nothing?
Our bosses, bishops and benefactors,
even our academics and Turcocentric ghazetajis
are unanimous in asserting that
all our problems are someone else’s fault.
*
Canadians are now willing to concede that
in their treatment of natives
they engaged in “cultural genocide.”
Someday we too may teach ourselves
to speak of “cultural suicide.”
*
Who among us will dare to suggest that
we had better writers under the Sultans
in the Ottoman Empire than
under our own benefactors
in the United States of America?
*
Why is it that to be objective in our environment
is thought of as engaging in unArmenian activities?
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: comment

ON STYLE
***********************
A good style is recognized
by its brevity and inevitability.
*
ON AMERICA
***********************
“I love America.”
“Have you ever been there?
“No.”
*
ON AMERICA (II)
***************************
Czeslaw Milosz: “It is better to deal with an intelligent devil
than with a good-natured idiot.”
*
JIMMY CAGNEY
***************************
I love Jimmy Cagney (WHITE HEAT)
but I loathe his YANKEE DOODLE DANDY.
*
CONVERSATIONS
*****************************
Ever since I read Jean-Jacques Brousson’s
CONVERSATIONS WITH ANATOLE FRANCE
books of conversations have become my favorite genre.
*
GOSSIP
*********************
If you enjoy malicious gossip,
try CONVERSATIONS WITH TRUMAN CAPOTE.
*
ON GOETHE
**********************
Eckermann’s CONVERSATIONS WITH GOETHE
is the only book by or about Goethe
that I have enjoyed reading.
*
NEGLECTED MASTERPIECES
***********************************
If I were to make a list of neglected masterpieces
I would begin with THE SABRES OF PARADISE
by Lesley Blanch and
THE GOUFFE CASE by Joachim Maass.
*
WISDOM BY ANONYMOUS
************************************
“You never miss the water ‘til the well runs dry.”
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: comment

PARADOXES
**************************
To create millions of galaxies
and to populate only a single planet so tiny
that it might as well be invisible to the naked eye.
Figure that one out if you can.
*
To create an organ
that can answer an infinite number of questions
but not the most important ones.
Can anyone explain that?
*
We love to be deceived
and when no one is remotely interested in deceiving us,
we deceive ourselves.
*
We live in a world where a single wrong word
at the wrong time and place may cost your life
but where the slaughter of millions
of innocent civilians is dismissed as propaganda.
*
I always write with the false assumption that
at least one of my readers (about a dozen in all)
has a friend.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: comment

ENEMIES
***********************
Our enemies are better organized.
They also have the cunning and the numbers.
All we have in our favor is empty verbiage.
This has been said before but it bears repeating.
*
If you speak of fact, you will make enemies.
Fiction and verse – that’s different.
*
“You must be more positive!”
in our context means “We are children
and we refuse to grow up.”
*
Do you have any idea what happens
when a golden apple falls on your head
from heaven? It shatters your skull.
*
Our history is a nightmare
from which we refuse to wake up.
This too has been said before.
*
You cannot negotiate with someone
who has more power than you.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: comment

ON SYPHILIZATION
*************************************
Like the rest of mankind
Turks too want to be loved and respected.
As for history: there is a wild beast in all of us.
*
The central aim of patriotism
is to turn law-abiding, decent men
into bloodthirsty savages.
*
Lord Byron: “I am ashes
where once I was fire.”
*
Turgenev: “Cheer up, old fellow!
After all, you are Flaubert!”
#