Tag: quotes

  • Half-penny thoughts — 12dec25

    The only thing they feared more than failure was success.

    – appropriated variant of a common phrase, applied to The Replacements

    There are several variations of the above quote from across time; I’m not sure who said something like it originally. There are several people credited with saying something like it. It has been rattling around in my head since I saw it (again), although I cannot say exactly why.

    There’s something somewhat terribly romantic in that notion, isn’t there? That idea that failure is somehow more desirable than success, even if driven by a fear response.

    (more…)

  • On Culture and Subculture

    …[R]eviving culture requires a new generation of outsiders willing to create their own movements from scratch.

    Unfortunately, the current media ecosystem discourages this. The major internet platforms encourage creators to chase virality rather than cultivate smaller, self-sustaining communities. Global brands tease lucrative deals to emerging artists and micro-influencers, reinforcing the idea that “getting the bag” is the ultimate goal. […] In an era when we live as personal brands, every decision is made to increase our own shareholder value.

    Making art with lasting meaning requires resisting the pull of instant exposure and early buyouts. We must think through ways to encourage artists to disappear into their own worlds for a while, developing ideas away from corporate influence and assimilation. Not everyone will have the discipline or capacity for this, but those who do or can will shape the future. And the least that critics and fans can do is give them esteem—when justified—for attempting to move culture forward, instead of ignoring them as marginal, castigating them as pretentious, or belittling their view counts. The past 25 years have taught us that the contemporary economy and media will not prioritize creative invention. The question is: Will you?

    — from W. David Marx, Blank Space: A Cultural History of the Twenty-First Century in Make Culture Weird Again, originally published at The Atlantic.

  • Foxes — a Ji Yun quote

    Photo by Freezer on Unsplash

    Humans and beasts are different species, but foxes are between humans and beasts. The dead and the living walk different roads, but foxes are between the dead and the living. Transcendents and monsters travel different paths, but foxes are between transcendents and monsters. Therefore one could say to meet a fox is strange; one could also say it is ordinary.

    Human beings and physical objects belong to two different categories; fox-spirits stand somewhere between the two. The paths of light and darkness never converge: fox-spirits stand somewhere between the two. Immortals and demons go different ways; fox-spirits stand somewhere between the two.

    ~ Ji Yun, 1789, in Notebook from the Thatched Cottage of Close Scrutiny

  • Ray Bradbury Quote

    Photo by Sasha Matveeva on Unsplash

    “First of all, it was October, a rare month for boys. Not that all months aren’t rare. But there be bad and good, as the pirates say. Take September, a bad month: school begins. Consider August, a good month: school hasn’t begun yet. July, well, July’s really fine: there’s no chance in the world for school. June, no doubting it, June’s best of all, for the school doors spring wide and September’s a billion years away.”

    ~ Something Wicked This Way Comes, Prologue

  • Salinger quote

    “Just because I’m so horribly conditioned to accept everybody else’s values, and just because I like applause and people to rave about me, doesn’t make it right. I’m ashamed of it. I’m sick of it. I’m sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody. I’m sick of myself and everybody else that wants to make some kind of a splash.”

    — Franny in Franny and Zooey, J.D. Salinger