I have been reading the novel Don Quixote for about two months. The version I am reading has about 1,040 pages with about 1,100 footnotes. I am on around page 120. I feel like I will still be reading the book on my deathbed, no matter how many years away that is.
I do like the book and the translation. I thought Herman Melville's Moby Dick was long at about 850 pages. I'm afraid to ever pick up War and Peace.
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I knew Socrates was quite wise but I didn't realize he had so many thought-provoking quotes attributed to him. Here are a few I came across recently:
--The only true wisdom is to know that you know nothing.
--Those who are hardest to love need it the most.
--True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.
--The unexamined life is not worth living.
--Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
--Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.
--To find yourself, think for yourself.
--Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.
--Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.
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I decided to write down a few of the many good sentences in the book, Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style, by Virginia Tufte. It goes into the details and mechanics of good writing. What I have read of it, a good bit has been challenging to read. The reason is, at least for me, is that it gets into much grammar, of which I have never really had a taste for.
But I'm trying to learn to change my tastes. Here is a few lines:
The lamp had been standing cobwebbed in a corner, unplugged. John Updike
Outside, the darkness was total. Brian Moore
Slowly, the sky blew up. Philip Wylie
All that life soon faded. John Hersey
The noise had become so loud, so sharp. William Golding
The relationship is disgraceful, disgusting. Janet Frame
The town was occupied, the defender defeated, and the war finished. John Steinbeck
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I have to admit to myself that selling cartoons (gag cartoons) is not as easy as I thought. It has been humbling. I have been trying on and off for the last three years and have only sold, well, none.
But there is light at the end of the tunnel. But, as is said, it might be an oncoming train.
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I must say I am surprised to see how many people have still not gotten the vaccine. I believe there are rare cases where it may not be best to get the vaccine, but, generally speaking, I am shocked at how the propaganda put forth by the former president has seeped into the psyche of the conservative movement.
I see it as a form of mass hypnosis. That something so fundamentally against science and reason is eschewed. It will be interesting to see how history views the matter. I think I am at least close to the truth here.
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