The Art of Tetman Callis

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“No pain is too small if it hurts, but any pain is too small if it is cherished.” – Edward St. Aubyn, Never Mind

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“What charm is: being malicious about everybody except the person you are with, who then glows with the privilege of exemption.” – Edward St. Aubyn, Never Mind

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“Just as a novelist may sometimes wonder why he invents characters who do not exist and makes them do things which do not matter, so a philosopher may wonder why he invents cases that cannot occur in order to determine what must be the case.” – Edward St. Aubyn, Never Mind

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“I have written books which I have had to write, but I have not yet written a book which others have to read.” – Edward St. Aubyn, Never Mind

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“I firmly believe that before many centuries more, science will be the master of man.  The engines he will have invented will be beyond his strength to control.” – Henry Adams (quoted in Shelby Foote’s The Civil War: A Narrative)

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“There was once a time when there were but two persons in the world, Old Man and Old Woman. One time, when they were traveling about, Old Man met Old Woman, who said, ‘Now, let us come to an agreement of some kind; let us decide how the people shall live.’ ‘Well,’ said Old Man, […]

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“America’s commercial and military competitors are nations that have far fewer qualms about using government to promote their goals and that view government and the market as partners in a common project of national development. At home, the future of the economy depends on public investments in R&D and infrastructure by the federal government as […]

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“A drunken soldier with a musket in one hand and a match in the other is not a pleasant visitor to have about the house on a dark, windy night.” – Major General Henry W. Slocum, 1865 (quoted in Shelby Foote’s The Civil War: A Narrative)

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“When Nietzsche lost his faith, he concluded that God is dead. This is not critical thinking. This is narcissism.” — Leon Wieseltier, Kaddish

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“If you can write about the wreckage the wreckage is not complete. You are intact.” — Leon Wieseltier, Kaddish

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“If tradition is the great punctuator that saves us from ourselves it also usefully cuts us down to size, reminding us that we’re not that special, that our supposed uniqueness is trivial in the grand scheme of things.” — Adam Phillips, “Commanded to Mourn”

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“Imposing a pattern or form on experience over long stretches of time tends to make people very impatient because the material is always so recalcitrant. Continuity is always at war with circumstance, and the contingency of events. If a religion wants to be more than a refuge it has to develop, but if it adapts […]

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“There is revolution when what is deemed to be ordinary is put into question, when what is considered to be beyond the realm of choice is discovered not to be.” — Adam Phillips, “Commanded to Mourn”

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“Most people do not invent themselves. Most of them choose to be what they already are.” — Leon Wieseltier, Kaddish

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