This Is, Because That Is

It seemed as though he dared not kneel directly before God. Everything around him, this quiet garden, these balmy flowers, these children, shouting with joy, these  meek and simple women, this silent cloister, gradually entered…

Today’s One-Liner (#57)

The purer your thinking, the finer will be your work. –Sri Anandamayi Ma, in Joseph Fitzgerald, ed., The Essential Sri Anandamayi Ma: Life and Teachings of a 20th Century Indian Saint

Second Thoughts on Kerouac

But, disconcertingly, Kerouac was as likable in the flesh as he was repellent in print. In contrast to the seething Ginsberg, who went at me with everything he had, Kerouac (in spite of being the…

La Fin du Roman

Karamazov, s’écria Kolia, est-ce vrai ce que dit la religion, que nous ressusciterons d’entre les  morts, que nous nous reverrons les uns les autres, et tous, et Ilioucha ?  Oui, c’est vrai, nous ressusciterons, nous…

Thank You, Biographers!

Biography is, of the various kinds of narrative writing, that which is most eagerly read, and most easily applied to the purposes of life.  –Samuel Johnson, The Idler, 84 in A Johnson Sampler, edited by…

Today’s One-Liner (#55)

The meaning of life lies not, as we have grown used to thinking, in prospering, but in the development of the soul. –Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, First Things, August/September 2024, p. 70,