J. M. Ledgard famous quotes

Our souls are made of water, Goethe says. So too, our bodies. There is a flow within us, rising and falling, unidirectional, to the heart. there is a flow without also. We circulate. We are drawn up, and we fall back down to earth again. It's all haemodynamics.
-- J. M. Ledgard

#Fall #Heart #Water

But then life is never neat, it is made up of doors and trapdoors. You move down baroque corridors, and even when you think you know which door to open, you still need to have the courage to choose.
-- J. M. Ledgard

#Moving #Thinking #Doors

If man had a sense of proportion, he would die of shame.
-- J. M. Ledgard

#Men #Shame #Proportion

If literary fiction is reduced to only middle-class families dealing only with middle-class angst, then it’s really finished as a force for grappling with the world.
-- J. M. Ledgard

#Class #Fiction #World

The pattern of a newspaperman's life is like the plot of 'Black Beauty.' Sometimes he finds a kind master who gives him a dry stall and an occasional bran mash in the form of a Christmas bonus, sometimes he falls into the hands of a mean owner who drives him in spite of spavins and expects him to live on potato peelings.

Nothing is as easy or natural as consumer brands want us to think - no problem is as resolvable. Your hair will fall out, eventually. Yet we do have these brands, and we line our shelves with them. There's an inherent irony.

The brand is lying about something, or at least misrepresenting it. When I read a bottle of shampoo or moisturizer or other beauty product, I always perceive a dark subtext. The words haunt me. It comes across as humorous to the reader/audience, but in fact the words really do make me a little bit queasy. Nothing is as easy or natural as consumer brands want us to think - no problem is as resolvable. Your hair will fall out, eventually. Yet we do have these brands, and we line our shelves with them. There's an inherent irony.

You've got to stand for something, or you'll fall for anything You've got to be your own man, not a puppet on a string

In all her twisted perfection she had made me fall helplessly in love with her. A life without her in it seemed pointless.

But men at whiles are sober And think by fits and starts. And if they think, they fasten Their hands upon their hearts

I sought them far and found them, The sure, the straight, the brave, The hearts I lost my own to, The souls I could not save They braced their belts about them, They crossed in ships the sea, They sought and found six feet of ground, And there they died for me.

When Christ at Cana's feast by pow'r divine, Inspir'd cold water, with the warmth of wine, See! cry'd they while, in red'ning tide, it gush'd, The bashful stream hath seen its God and blush'd.

If a big wave came at the wrong moment, it would sweep me off into forty-eight-degree water, where I might last twenty minutes. Drowning quickly might be better.

Of course, you can’t force your mind to be silent. That would be like trying to smooth ripples in water with a flatiron. Water becomes clear and calm only when left alone.