Frank Kermode famous quotes

Last updated: Sep 5, 2024

I noticed affixed to a laboratory door the following words: "Les thÃ©ories passent. Le Grenouille reste. [The theories pass. The frog remains.] &mdashJean Rostand, Carnets d'un biologiste." There is a risk that in the less severe discipline of criticism the result may turn out to be different; the theories will remain but the frog may disappear.
-- Frank Kermode

#Doors #Discipline #Risk
It is ourselves we encounter whenever we invent fictions.
-- Frank Kermode

#Encounters #Fiction
It is not expected of critics that they should help us to make sense of our lives; they are bound only to attempt the lesser feat of making sense of the ways we try to make sense of our lives.
-- Frank Kermode

#Trying #Way #Helping
It is one of the great charms of books that they have to end.
-- Frank Kermode

#Book #Charm #Ends

If you close your eyes you can imagine the hackers sitting in a room, combing through the documents to find the ones that will draw the most blood. And in a room next door are American journalists doing the same thing. As demented and criminal as it is, at least the hackers are doing it for a cause. The press is doing it for a nickel.
Making money is not gonna change anything about what I am, except I won't answer the door.
Once a sage asked why scholars always flock to the doors of the rich, whilst the rich are not inclined to call at the doors of scholars. â€˜The scholarsâ€˜ he answered , â€˜are well aware of the use of money, but the rich are ignorant of the nobility of science.â€™
You know Nana, I searched and searched, but could never find the key that unlocked the way. And now that I've stopped looking, I've finally found it. Maybe the door will open for me.
The discipline of colleges and universities is in general contrived, not for the benefit of the students, but for the interest, or more properly speaking, for the ease of the masters. Its object is, in all cases, to maintain the authority of the master, and whether he neglects or performs his duty, to oblige the students in all cases to behave toward him as if he performed it with the greatest diligence and ability.
For dash and gallantry the bloodthirsty Scots, Australians and Canadians led the way, with the impetuous Irish close behind. The Australian to my mind were the most aggressive, and managed to keep their form in spite of their questionable discipline. Out of the line they were undoubtedly difficult to handle, but once in it they loved a fight. They were a curious mixture of toughness and sentimentality...
Those who have nothing have only their discipline.
I think there's some connection between absolute discipline and absolute freedom.
Drawing is one of those things which sit on the uneasy bending line between instinct and instruction, where seeming perversity eventually trumps pleasure as the card players and the kibitzers interact and new thrills are sought.
Moral improvement (or perfecting) require an evolution leading to a higher consciousness, which is the true torch of life; it is what we have failed too much to appreciate, and that which would be fatal to fail to appreciate any longer ("pluslongtemps", Fr.); For if we do not take it upon ourselves to remedy in time to the moral colapse (or bankruptcy) that already threaten, the whole civilisation will risks to disappear.

Frank Kermode famous quotes

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