Quotes and E-Mails from Mom

Occasionally I say something brilliant myself. We all do. Mostly though, we hear things from other people we think are brilliant. I believe this is as a result of the human tendency to discount ourselves and hold others in a higher esteem. Maybe it is an American thing. What drives our economy and technical advancement. We want to be better like "them".

Whatever the reason, I often come across tidbits of brilliance or totally stupidity that help to frame where, I think, the human race is, or more simply where I am. Below please find some of the quotes that seemed especially revealing to me. Also you will find comments made by my mother, usually via e-mail. She works in retail book selling, 'nuff said:

Quote read/heard: May 2003 Adaptation Spoken by Nicholas Cage to his twin brother, also played by Nicholas Cage "You are what you love... not what loves you"
Quote read/heard: April 2003 Why People Believe Weird Things, pg 264 Author: Michael Shermer (book), Martin Gardner (quote) "Fideism refers to believing something on the basis of faith, or emotional reasons rather than intellectual reasons. As a fideist I don't think there are any arguments that prove the existence of God or the immortality of the soul. More than that I think the better arguments are on the side of the atheists. So it is a case of quixotic emotional belief that really is against the evidence. If you have strong emotional reasons for metaphysical belief and it's not sharply contradicted by science or logical reasoning, you have a right to make a leap of faith if it provides sufficient satisfaction"
Quote read/heard: April 2003 The Good, the Bad and the Difference, pg 131 Author: Randy Cohen "Sometimes excessive fastidiousness is not ethics; it's vanity"	Quote read/heard: April 2003 Why People Believe Weird Things, pg 264 Author: Michael Shermer (book), Tom McDonough and David Brin (quote) "Perhaps we owe our existence, and the convenient perfection of our physical laws, to the trial-and-error evolution of untold generations of prior universes, a chain of mother-and-child cosmoses, each of them spawned in the nurturing depths of black holes."
Quote read/heard: April 2003 Why People Believe Weird Things, pg 274 Author: Michael Shermer, in defining what is 'a weird belief' "Weird things are like pornography- difficult to define but obvious when you see them"	Quote read/heard: April 2003 Why People Believe Weird Things, pg 275 Author: Michael Shermer "More than any other, the reason people believe weird things is because they want to. It feels good. It is comforting."
Quote read/heard: Feb 2003 Anti-War/Peace Rally Stuttgart Germany Author: Clever Protester Placard "Bombing for Peace is like Fucking for Virginity"	Quote read/heard: Feb 2003 http://www.furia.com - switch essay Author: Glenn McDonald "The more you use a Mac, and the more of its secrets you learn (and the bizarre truth is that although simple tasks are designed to be much simpler on a Mac than on a PC, the Mac is also much more deeply and pervasively capable of being tweaked and customized and automated and shortcutted), the more you like it. This is exactly, radically, totally the opposite of what happens in Windows, where every damn thing you learn after the first ten minutes will make you hate it more and more violently."
Quote read/heard: Feb 2003 Life of Pi Author: Yann Martel "There are always those who take it upon themselves to defend God, as if Ultimate Reality, as if the sustaining frame of existence, were something weak and helpless. These people walk by a widow deformed by leprosy begging for a few paise, walk by children dressed in rags living in the street, and they think, 'Business as usual.' But if they perceive a slight against God, it is a different story. Their faces go red, their chests heave mightily, the sputter angry words. The gress of their indignation is astonishing. Their resolve frightening. These people fail to realize that it is on the inside that God must be defended, not on the outside. They should direct their anger at themselves. For evil in the open is but evil from within that has been let out. The main battlefield for good is not the open ground of the public arena but the small clearing of each heart. Meanwhile, the lot of widows and homeless children is very hard, and it is to their defense, not God's, that the self-righteous should rush."
Quote read/heard: Dec 2002 Tech Investor on CNN/Money.com Author: David Futrelle "Like fame, personality is a bitch. As the New York Dolls put it in Personality Crisis, 'You got it while it was hot/But now frustration and heartache is what you've got'"	Quote read/heard: Dec 2002 Lamb: The gospel according to Biff, Jesus' childhood pal Author: Christopher Moore/Voltaire "God is a comedian playing to an audience that is afraid to laugh"
Quote read/heard: Revisited September 2002 The Princess Bride Author: Conversation between Wesley and Vizzini before their battle of wits to the death (Vizzini drinks the poison and dies) Wesley: "Truly you have a dizzying intellect" Vizzini: "Wait till I get going!"	Quote read/heard: October 2002 Shape Magazine Author: C.P. watching Friends: as good as having real ones? Sociologist Satoshi Kanazawa, Ph.D., found that people who regularly follow Monica and Chandler as well as certain other TV shows feel as satisfied with their social lives as people who have more friends and see them often. Sitcoms and dramas satisfy women most, white men prefer news shows and public-television programs. "The way the brain recognizes friends evolved long before TV was invented," Kanazawa says. So subconsciously, the brain does not distinguish between TV characters and read friends and treats them as equals. Televised sports weren't studied.
Quote read/heard: September 2002 Rolling Stone Author: Geoff Rickly of the band Thursday "That tag 'emo' is condescending to music, in general. It sort of implies that music isn't emotional unless you're using the term to market your angst and emotions. It's a false genre"	Quote read/heard: September 2002 Rolling Stone Author: Craig Nicholls of the band The Vines when asked whether he had a girlfriend "...Love. It's too hard. That's why I listen to music"
Quote read/heard: August 2002 Cryptonomicon, pg. 43 Author: Neal Stephenson "People too busy living their lives to worry about extending their life expectancy"	Quote read/heard: August 2002 Cryptonomicon, pg. 61 Author: Neal Stephenson "This was just the executive summary of a weird life that Randy only learned about in bits and pieces as the years went on. Later he was to decide that Andrew's life had been fractally weird, that is you could take any small piece of it and examine it in detail and it, in and of itself, would turn out to be just as complicated and weird as the whole thing in its entirety"
Quote read/heard: August 2002 CNN interview Author: Alice Sebold author of the best seller 'The Lovely Bones' talking about all her previously failed books. "After a while, you don't think what can''t be done and what can be done, because no ones going to care anyway. You just go and have fun in your room which is what, to me, art should be about anyway"	Quote read/heard: August 2002 Fooled by Randomness Author: Nassim Nicholas Taleb "Intellectual contempt does not control personal envy"
Quote read/heard: August 2002 Patrick read it on a web page Author: Jan L.A. van de Snepscheut "In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is"	Quote read/heard: August 2002 Dilbert Newsletter No. 42 Author: Induhvidual CIO "We do a great job of servicing our customers from the front end, but we must all remember to continue servicing our clients through the back end"
Quote read/heard: March 2002 Details Mag review of music by Josh Bitter Author: Barton Blasengame "Forlorn folk that could make Mr. Rogers contemplate a razor-blade wristwatch"	Quote read/heard: August 2002 Blinded by the Right Author: David Brock "The many closeted gays who served in the senior most ranks of the Reagan administration, called themselves the 'Laissez Fairies"
Quote read/heard: March 2002 CQM class 'Leading without Authority' Author: Barry "You can't argue with how someone feels, only the reason they feel that way"	Quote read/heard: March 2002 Red Hearing Magazine Author: Bhutanese saying "If it is medicine, you should take it from an enemy, if it is poison, you should refuse it from a friend"
Quote read/heard: December 2001 (It struck me at this point, though of course I have heard it a hundred times before) Closer, The Downward Spiral Author: Trent Reznor "I am denial guilt and fear"	Quote read/heard: March 2002 Federal Building, NYC Author: Daniel Webster in a speech to Congress in 1834 "Credit - Man's confidence in man"
Quote read/heard: November 2001 Details Magazine Author: Robert Smith "Killing an Arab...has no racist overtones whatsoever" From an explanatory sticker that the Cure, under pressure from the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee, agreed to put on 'Standing on the Beach: the singles' in 1987. Lead singer Robert Smith maintained that the chorus 'I'm alive, I'm dead, I'm the stranger, killing an Arab' referred to Albert Camus's 'The Stranger', and was intended as a pacifist comment on existential alienation."	Quote read/heard: October 2001 Jane Magazine Author: Statistics "Women think about sex for 48 minutes a day. They think about their hair for 43."
Quote read/heard: September 2001 Web site: http://www.umsl.edu/~psycbloo/quotes.html Author: Niels Bohr "Never express yourself more clearly than you can think."	Quote read/heard: September 2001 Details Magazine Author: Charles Bernard Shaw "I, from time to time, quote myself. That adds spice to my conversation."
Quote read/heard: July 2001 Don't Remember Author: Tom Lehrer "When viewed correctly, everything is lewd."	Quote read/heard: September 2001 Hitchcock and Art - Fatal Coincidences Author: Dominique Paini, discussing why mystery character Father Brown's ability to solve crimes by literally seeing through the eyes of the criminal is better than understanding their psychology. "Psychology vain not scientific, good only for providing excuses."
Quote read/heard: September 2001 Web site: http://www.umsl.edu/~psycbloo/quotes.html Author: George Washington "There is nothing which can better deserve our patronage than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of happiness."	Quote read/heard: September 2001 Web site: http://www.umsl.edu/~psycbloo/quotes.html Author: Sir Conan Doyle "It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts."
Quote read/heard: August 2001 Hitchcock Exhibit Referencing Hitchcock's "women" "Hitchcock's women are clearly a Symbolist throwback. Their expressionless, sphinx-like faces vitiate all pathos. But behind the mask slumber animal cruelty and voracious nymphomania."	Quote read/heard: September 2001 Web site: http://www.umsl.edu/~psycbloo/quotes.html Author: René Descartes "Except for our own thoughts, there is nothing absolute in our power."
Quote read/heard: August 2001 Hitchcock Exhibit Referencing Hitchcock's "women" "Blonde icy ephemeral prototypes of Victorian women painted by Dante Gabriele Rosetti and photographed by Julia Margret Cameron."	Quote read/heard: August 2001 Jane Mag, "Dumb, dumb, da-dumb" Author: Jeff Johnson "Speaking of tacky, why strong-arm a toddler into a JonBenet moment just because you're getting married? I've never been so in love that I had to involve an overdressed 4-year-old."
Quote read/heard: July 2001 "The Picture of Dorian Gray" Author: Oscar Wilde "Is insincerity such a terrible thing? I think not. It is merely a method by which we can multiply our personality"	Quote read/heard: July 2001 Talk magazine, May 2001 Author: Sam Sifton "...his followers think of Torvalds as a kind of God. Linux is, to them, a belief system, as immutable as faith itself."
Quote read/heard: June 2001 Rolling Stone - on US Foreign Policy under "Dubya" Author: PJ O'Rourke "Start with the citizens of the 19 nations who host 61 major US military bases. They are about as happy with us as we would be with 250,000 highland Scots bivouacked in our midst flicking their kilts at our girls, cranking up the bagpipe music at all hours and filling our shopping-mall food courts with the stink of Haggis."	Quote read/heard: July 2001 "The Picture of Dorian Gray" Author: Oscar Wilde "Society, civilized society at least, is never ready to believe anything to the detriment of those who are both rich and fascinating"
Quote read/heard: June 2001 "The Big Tease" Spring Break in Panama City Beach Florida Author: Nerve Magazine "It's like watching a porn movie in which the characters decide just to talk."	Quote read/heard: June 2001 Lord Henry, 1st Chapter of "The Picture of Dorian Gray" Author: Oscar Wilde "It is a sad thing to think of, but there is no doubt that Genius lasts longer than beauty"
Quote read/heard: June 2001 "A Hearse of a Different Color" - when the main character is describing the bar the murder victim worked in Author: Tim Cockey "It was practically dripping in semen"	Quote read/heard: June 2001 Email - referring to how Patrick and I fixed our marriage and her general attitude about knowing someone Author: Janet Hicks "It is so great and important that you can talk so frankly about your needs, and most importantly, VALUES. I really have decided that that is key to understanding a person: finding out what his or her values are: what they MEAN when they say something..."
Quote read/heard: May 2001 (OK I heard it before but I heard it again this month) Everything's Zen Author: Bush "There's no sex in your violence"	Quote read/heard: June 2001 Lucky Magazine Author: Ask the editors in referring to the "puffy sleeve" in this years collections "Remember, a little bit of preciousness goes a long way"
Quote read/heard: May 2001 Red Herring magazine on Int'l Flight Author: Harold F. Degenhardt, District Admin. for the SEC speaking on the profusion of pump and dump stock schemes on the internet and how gullible/naive investors are. "So much fraud, so little time."	Quote read/heard: May 2001 "Finding Forrester" on Int'l Flight Author: Sean Connery "Those that have gone before us...cannot study the unrest of those of us that follow"
Quote read/heard: March 2001 Talk Magazine Author: Not sure, but it wasn't me "As reality based entertainment dilutes fifteen minutes of fame into a split second of infamy, how much further will we have to go to get the recognition we crave?"	Quote read/heard: April 2001 Song on MTV Author: Not sure "Every night I dream one day..."
Quote read/heard: March 2001 W Magazine Author: Rena Sindi, NY Socialite "I've gone through a period of conformity, when I had to have the right Gucci show, and it takes security to overcome that. I didn't get that until recently."	Quote read/heard: March 2001 Talk Magazine Author: Oscar Wilde "Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it ever six months"
Quote read/heard: April 18, 2001 Patrick reading from "Fungi slays insects and feed host plants" in Science News Author: L Wang "It was as shocking as putting a pizza in front of a person and having the pizza eat the person instead of vice versa"	Quote read/heard: April 16, 2001 Patrick Author: Patrick heard it from Dr. Fate at Moorpark City, American History class "Religion and Government use sex to control people because it is the only human need that can be denied without killing a person"
Quote remembered: April 17, 2001 Opening line from a Butthole Surfer song Author: I'm sure someone else said it before the Butthole Surfers "It is better to regret something you have done than to regret something you haven't done."	Quote read/heard: April 17, 2001 In an email from my friend Kim Author: Someone's proverb. Chinese I think. "Do not look at where you fell, but where you slipped"
Quote read/heard: April 17, 2001 In an email from my friend Kim Author: Can't remember "It is better to be hated for what you have done, than loved for what you haven't done."	Quote read/heard April 16, 2001 Review of "Assassinated Naps: Life's Tiny Pleasures" read in Air France flight magazine on the way back from Barcelona Author: Phillippe Delerm "Savoring the heart of an artichoke after battling through the leaves"
Quote read/heard: February 16, 2001 Found on the back of a Sisley sales tag Author: T. Watson Jr. "A man flattened by an opponent can get up again. A man flattened by conformity stays down for good."	Quote read/heard: January 27, 2001 Character: Carla, chapter 8 Book: "Fight Club", Author: Chuck Palahniuk "You know, the condom is the glass slipper of our generation. You slip it on when you meet a stranger. You dance all night, then you throw it away. The condom I mean. Not the stranger."
From: Mom Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 21:59:22 EST To: heather@heathershair.com Subject: Public The public is nasty. I would like to hide for the next two weeks! I don't set prices,I don't ordered the books , I have no power to meet Tower's discount ,I don't make up the best seller list and if one more "old person" interrupts me while I am helping someone else,Ill hit them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Will order dog bed. I think maybe it is LLBean. Am I stressed ? Hell yes. Took Dee and the twins to see 102 Dalmations.....................I never saw 101 and did not know why Cruella was in jail. I don't remember taking you to the movies much, the "Rocky" doesn't really count. Love you MOM