"We possess the Canon because we are mortal and also rather belated. There is only so much time, and time must have a stop, while there is more to read than there ever was before. From the Yahwist and Homer to Freud, Kafka, and Beckett is a journey of nearly three millennia. Since that voyage goes past harbors as infinite as Dante, Chaucer, Montaigne, Shakespeare, and Tolstoy, all of whom amply compensate a lifetime's rereadings, we are in the pragmatic dilemma of excluding something else each time we read or reread extensively."

Source : Harold Bloom (2014). “The Western Canon”, p.45, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Harold Bloom

#Past Quotes #Journey Quotes #Voyages Quotes

“I used to lift very heavy weights in my mid-twenties - I used to bench press over 300lb. The most I ever lifted was 330lb; I couldn't do that today, no way.”
“Beaten biscuits: This is the most laborious of cakes, and also the most unwholesome, even when made in the best manner. We do not recommend it; but there is no accounting for tastes. Children would not eat these biscuits-nor grown persons either, if they can get any other sort of bread. When living in a town where there are bakers, there is no excuse for making Maryland biscuit. Believe nobody that says they are not unwholesome. . . . Better to live on Indian cakes.”
“...Everyone had to eat, but eating people wasn't polite.”
“There is no more steely barb than that of the Infinite.”
“so I wait for you like a lonely house till you will see me again and live in me. Till then my windows ache.”

Source : Pablo Neruda (1986). “100 Love Sonnets: Cien sonetos de amor”, University of Texas Press
“Deep in the secret chambers of my heart I muse my life-long hate, and without flinch I bear it nobly as I live my part.”

Source : Claude McKay, William Maxwell (2004). “Complete Poems”, p.162, University of Illinois Press
“A big part of being an actress specifically is feeling entitled to your artistic opinion, feeling that it means something, and being able to stand by it.”
“Let me just say, as a fellow chick, her hair looked fabulous this morning.”

Source : Daily Press Briefing, 2009-2017.state.gov. January 7, 2013.

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