Sunday, October 22, 2006

Quotes from Sage's readings and a photo from the archives


Photo: Virginia City, Nevada. Winter 1988-89

“Fly rods are like Cornish pasties—both are best made for love rather than for money.”
-“Morris the Rodmaker,” Robert Traver (A while back there was quite a discussion in my blog about Cornish pasties and there’s been off and on discussions about fly fishing, so I had to include this quote that ties the two together.)

“If you look at the general overall situation, they’re doing remarkably well.”
-“Dead-Eye” Dick Cheney on the Rush Limbaugh show, commenting on the war in Iraq.

When Dick Cheney told Rush Limbaugh that things in Iraq are going "remarkably well," he must have been speaking not as the vice president (not even Cheney is that delusional) but as a man with an ongoing financial interest in Halliburton, which continues to profit from the otherwise disastrous war.
Arianna Huffington in response to Cheney’s comments

…to purchase peace at home by sowing chaos abroad…
-Bruce Chatwin in What Am I Doing Here (and he wasn’t talking about our current administration)

Men of action have a habit of consigning past loves and indiscretions to oblivion in the hope of better things to come.
-Writing about Andre’ Malraux, Bruce Chatwin in What Am I Doing Here

"The secret divinity of the twentieth century is Science. But Science is incapable of forming character. The more people talk of human sciences, the less effect human sciences have on man. You know as well as I do that psychoanalysis has never made a man.”
-Andre’ Malraux, as quoted by Bruce Chatwin in What Am I Doing Here

“There is the positive hero and the negative hero, and the two do not mix. The negative hero usually has far greater poetic power. Lawrence and Che’ Guevara were negative heroes. Alexander the Great was a positive hero. De Gaulle, all things considered, was a positive hero; he certainly lacked the masochism of a Lawrence. But the negative heor is a victim. If Guevara today were President of Bolivia it would never have worked. A hero like that requires the crucifixion.”
-Andre’ Malraux, as quoted by Bruce Chatwin in What Am I Doing Here

It’s far easier to become a star again than become one.”
-Andre’ Malraux as quoted by Bruce Chatwin in What Am I Doing Here

In France intellectuals are usually incapable of opening an umbrella.
-Andre’ Malraux (a Frenchman) as quoted by Bruce Chatwin in What Am I Doing Here

“Walking is virtue, tourism deadly sin”
Werner Herzog as quoted by Bruce Chatwin in What Am I Doing Here

“When the pulpit becomes an echo of the pew, it loses, I think, almost all of its reason for existence.”
-Gardner C, Taylor in The Christian Century

Time was one of Gandhi’s obsessions. Each minute, he held, was a gift of God to be used in the service of man… He used each pencil right down to an ungrippable stub, because he held that it represented the work of a fellow human being and to waste it would indicate indifference to his labors.”
-Freedom at Midnight, “Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre

The implications of a dam exceeds it true level in the scale of environmental catastrophes. Conservationists who can hold themselves in reasonable check before new oil spills and fresh metropolises, mysteriously go insane at even the thought of a dam… possibly the reaction is so violent because rivers as the ultimate metaphor of existence and dams destroys rivers, humiliating nature...
John McPhee, The Founding Fish (I thought I’d give dams equal time after my Abbey post).

17 comments:

  1. great quotes again..

    the first one made me laugh though. some of my mums old friends from cornwall set up a tiny pasty shop in reading a few years ago now and have become millionaires. they now have branches in almost every train station in the uk and have them all over london.
    so it seems you can have your pasty and profit from it :)

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  2. ooh and before you ask.. yes they are real yummy pasties. though they make many alternative fillings too. they even still use good pastry :)

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  3. I think Huffington nailed it with her quote...

    Here via Michele's today :)

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  4. You wrote:

    …to purchase peace at home by sowing chaos abroad…
    -Bruce Chatwin in What Am I Doing Here (and he wasn’t talking about our current administration)

    Tim Rice writes:

    Even if that was Bush's goal, I don't think his actions are achieving that goal. In the long run, I believe Bush's actions will only bring the war closer to home. Even if one believes that Saddam had to be brought down, Bush's action wasn't well thought out. We're only creating more enemies and more suffering for people who don't deserve it.

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  5. Great quotes, I liked the one about negative heros; Orde Wingate would be a negative hero of mine. ps the best cornish pastie I ever had was a Balti curry filled one in Glasgow Central train station, Scotland. The Glasgoew curry is a speciality and they are more common and hotter here than in India. I will be back for another peek at your blog.

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  6. That Dick Cheney is the Vice President of the United States illustrates just how troubling our political process is. We need a solution to power politics.

    And, post 2008, if Cheney is elected to another public office it will be too soon. Though I'm guessing he'll be heading back to Halliburton where he can be instrumental in "winning" govt contracts.

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  7. And great photograph Sage. Is that snow or dust on the ground? Did you use a sepia filter? The sepia tone to the photograph looks brilliant. Perhaps this reveals my suburbian point of view but I think the photograph captures an ghostown like atmosphere. Perhaps everyone is having fun in the saloon after a hard week. Once again, amazing photograph. Thanks for posting it.

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  8. Keda, since you're my only true Cornish reader (that I know of), I'd love to try your pasties.

    Thumper, thanks for stopping by

    Tim, I agree with you

    Hawkeye, that blending of Cornish and Indian to come up with a curry pasty sounds interesting

    V, I don't think I used a filter. Taken on a tripod, I think with a 28 mm lens, using light from street lamps. There is a "dusting" of snow on the ground.

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  9. I was at that interview Sage and Huffington got it wrong. Dead Eye Dick wasn't referring to Haliburton but was in fact referring to the insurgency. Thought I would correct that mistake.

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  10. We got one, sage!!! :+)

    GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO TIGERS!!!

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  11. Sage, if you are going to say lines like 'I want to try your pasties', at least have the smarts to do it via email. Not everyone wants to see how pathetically lame your lines are.

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  12. DesertRat-does that mean we can try him for treason?

    Karen, It was a great game, but the 9th inning--which was beyond my bedtime--was a little to suspenseful and not exactly a relaxing to prepare for sleep.

    Murf, Murf, Murf, don't get all worked over pasties again.

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  13. Oh, Sage...I pray for days when you do things like that. They're fairly rare which makes me treasure them when they do happen and that one comment will be used when you least expect it. For what it's worth, her pastie may be more authentic but mine is closer. *wink,wink*

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  14. By the way, that overt flirting seemed appropriate but it still makes me a little queasy to do that to you. ;-)

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  15. ....and there is a pastie maker 30 minutes west of here...

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  16. Great quotes as always! (I am staying away from the pasties chatter!)

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  17. My grandfather used to make fishing rods....... for people he liked - gifts.

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