Decca Aitkenhead famous quotes

My hunch, for what it's worth, is that most of us probably find it much, much harder than we realize to really imagine what catastrophe is like. I have a hunch that we all labor under this rather convenient illusion that if we read about the Syrian refugee crisis, we can imagine what it feels like to set off from your home and your life with all your possessions in two bin liners. We all think that we can imagine that and my guess is that none of us have got a clue.
-- Decca Aitkenhead

#Home #Thinking #Refugee Crisis

I flattered myself that I was rather empathetic, that I had rather good imaginative empathy. I've realized now that that was a complete self-delusion and that I didn't really have any comprehension of what it was like to see your entire life go catastrophically wrong in a matter of moments.
-- Decca Aitkenhead

#Self #Empathy #Matter

Trying to defend religion by invoking science is like claiming that three plus four equals ice cream.
-- Decca Aitkenhead

#Ice Cream #Trying #Three

For most of my life I have known how to control my feelings. If you can control your feelings, you can pretty much control your whole world. It's amazingly effective.
-- Decca Aitkenhead

#Feelings #World #Whole

I suppose if I didn't write for a living and it couldn't be published, I would have wanted to write anyway. I think there's something about the act of writing that organizes thoughts and memories.
-- Decca Aitkenhead

#Memories #Writing #Thinking

I can't stand family secrets. I think they're such a toxic thing and they always leak out.
-- Decca Aitkenhead

#Thinking #Secret #Toxic

One of the rather unedifying truths about grief is it does block out more or less everything. It has a solipsistic quality to it.
-- Decca Aitkenhead

#Block #Grief #Quality

I've discovered that, in order for life to go on, you have to believe in necessary fantasies such as what you think is going to happen next week will actually happen, the people who are alive right now will be alive next week.
-- Decca Aitkenhead

#Believe #Thinking #Next Week

Baseball is about homecoming. It is a journey by theft and strength, guile and speed, out around first to the far island of second, where foes lurk in the reefs and the green sea suddenly grows deeper, then to turn sharply, skimming the shallows, making for a shore that will show a friendly face, a color, a familiar language and, at third, to proceed, no longer by paths indirect but straight, to home.

We have an obligation to spread amateur baseball both at home and abroad. Building up the game at all levels - Little League, Babe Ruth Leagues, the colleges - is in our own self-interest. That's where the pool of talent is - and also of fans.

I dont really take anything from home except some U.S. magazines and books and definitely some U.S. music. There are just certain songs that remind me of home.

…words have been all my life, all my life--this need is like the Spider's need who carries before her a huge Burden of Silk which she must spin out--the silk is her life, her home, her safety--her food and drink too--and if it is attacked or pulled down, why, what can she do but make more, spin afresh, design anew….

I don't know why we play better on the road. I really don't. Chalk it up to coincidence, I guess. I don't think we care where we play, which is a good thing. But you'd like to see our home record be a little better than it is.

Animals play a big part in my life, on tour or at home.

Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.

My hunch, for what it's worth, is that most of us probably find it much, much harder than we realize to really imagine what catastrophe is like. I have a hunch that we all labor under this rather convenient illusion that if we read about the Syrian refugee crisis, we can imagine what it feels like to set off from your home and your life with all your possessions in two bin liners. We all think that we can imagine that and my guess is that none of us have got a clue.

We all have to accept accusations that we ignored the refugee crisis for far too long. The first time that I referred to the Mediterranean Sea as Europe's cemetery was in October 2013, when hundreds of people drowned off Lampedusa. Italians, Maltese, Greeks and Spaniards have been pleading for help for years. But nobody cared.

We don't have a refugee crisis in America; we have a racism crisis here.