Tweet
Re: Writers
I repeat myself? So does propaganda. Complain about that, if you can.
I repeat myself? So does propaganda. Complain about that, if you can.
-
-
Re: Writers
Michel Tournier on death: "To die for me means to return to the state that preceded my birth. I couldn't have been nothing since I became something. In dying I will probably trace the road in the opposite direction."
On Proust: "He bores me. His social environment bores me. Closed worlds fascinate as well as repel me. The Thomas Mann of THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN fascinates me. So does Saint-Simon's Versailles. But Proust's Saint-Germain I find oppressive."Comment
-
Re: Writers
TOYNBEE ON ARMENIANS
*************************************
Toynbee never denied the reality of the Genocide.
That doesn’t make him an Armenophile.
In his STUDY OF HISTORY he classified Armenians
as “fossils,” meaning brain dead.
#Comment
-
Re: Writers
Tuesday, November 01, 2016
***********************************
NOTES / COMMENTS
***************************
Christianity: a religion like any other
with its inevitable quota of heresies, victims
and massacres.
*
Writing is not a business,
readers are not clients
and popularity is not an index.
*
When it comes to personal injuries
I happen to have an excellent memory.
So excellent in fact that for a good number of years
I made a comfortable living
by delivering lecture to herds of African elephants.
#Comment
-
Re: Writers
BOOKS IN MY LIFE
************************************************
In a book of interviews with writers,
the question that is asked to all of them is:
“What were your favorite books as a child?”
My answer: I didn’t have any
because we didn’t have any books.
I was three years old when World War II erupted
during which both our house and Father’s store
went up in smoke.
To say we lost everything would be an overstatement
because we didn’t have much to begin with.
As for books: I remember only
one dilapidated elementary school anthology
edited by Anonymous because the cover
and the first pages were missing.
#Comment
-
Re: Writers
Friday, November 04, 2016
*****************************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
*******************************
The secret ambition of all power structures
is to be judged by their propaganda
and not by the so-called unintended consequences
of their actions which may include war, massacre,
and genocide.
*
I don’t criticize ideas,
I insult men who suffer from illusions of grandeur
– the kind of degenerates
who condemned Socrates to death
and crucified Christ.
*
Once recently when I quoted Odian and Massikian
I was informed by one of our self-appointed
upholders of literary standards,
these two gentlemen may qualify as talented writers
but not as geniuses.
What could be more unbearable than
an arrogant mediocrity
who demands excellence in others!
*
I cannot help wondering how many
of these charlatans conspired
to ignore, starve, silence and sometimes even murder
our ablest men in the Ottoman Empire
and the Soviet Union.
*
Talaat and Stalin are not dead.
They live.
Nothing evil ever dies.
#Comment
-
Re: Writers
In a letter from an Armenian poet:
"After writing for Armenians all my life,
I am beginning to hate Turks less."
#Comment
-
Re: Writers
INSPIRATION
******************************
The written word is my main source of inspiration.
When I agree with something,
I compose a variation.
When I disagree,
I improvise a contradiction.
When I read an irresistible passage,
I quote it.
I love to quote.
I love to read books of quotations.
So much so that I have myself compiled two of them:
one published (A DICITIONARY OF ARMENIAN QUOTATIONS),
the other (much more extensive) in manuscript form.
*Comment
Comment