books
All posts tagged books
G.H. Hardy
“Hardy made certain to show no reaction as he listened to his own history, the awards and honorary degrees that authorized his renown. It was a litany he had become used to, and which sparked in him neither pride nor vanity, only weariness: to hear listed all he had achieved meant nothing to him, because these achievements belonged to the past, and therefore, in some sense, no longer belonged to him. All that had ever belonged to him was what he was doing. And now he was doing very little.”
The Indian Clerk, by David Leavitt
Part One, Chapter 1
Stanislaw Lem
#5. Some months ago, I noticed the new doorman, S, reading a dog-eared book as I waited for the elevator. Curious, I asked S, who seemed be be about two-thirds of the way through, what he was reading. “Ulysses,” he replied. It was indeed a copy of James Joyce’s magnum opus. Over the next few months, we had many brief and not so brief conversations about literature. Sometimes S recommended a book to me, sometimes (less frequently) I to him. S, who came from the Midwest to do standup comedy, said that several years ago, he decided to embark on a program of purposeful reading, carefully selecting the books with which he would be spending long hours. “Rewarding,” he said. The book of the moment is The Cyberiad, by Stanislaw Lem, also one of my favorites. “Interesting for its philosophical content,” said S, as I made ready to go out into the winter’s cold.
My ideas usually come not at my desk writing but in the midst of living.
– Anais Nin
zipTimer: an iPod/iPhone app for pacing piano practice, cooking, workouts, you name it.
Circle and Square 