"I think when you are truly stuck, when you have stood still in the same spot for too long, you throw a grenade in exactly the spot you were standing in, and jump, and pray. It is the momentum of last resort."

--

Source : Renata Adler (2013). “Speedboat”, p.29, New York Review of Books

Renata Adler

#Thinking Quotes #Long Quotes #Momentum Quotes

“I think that Windows 8 is kind of a catastrophe for everybody in the PC space.”
“The term "rational" and its variants (rationality, rationalism) are used in a lot of contexts in economic debate, both positively and negatively, but nearly always sloppily or dishonestly. A specimen I've seen on more occasions than I can count is the line (usually presented with a sense of witty originality) "if you are opposed to economic rationalism, you must be in favor of economic irrationalism"... I've come to the conclusion that the word "rational" has no meaning that cannot better be conveyed by some alternative term and that the best advice is probably to avoid it altogether.”
“About 10 percent of the hearing impaired get musical hallucinations, and about 10 percent of the visually impaired get visual hallucinations.”
“...They are wise to the ways of Wall Street - and...getting their fair share of the loot.(:)...from who will be the head of NIH, to which honorary degree will go to whom, which congressman gets the campaign funds from AMPAC (the political arm of the AMA), and whether Medicare fees can be hiked a bit for the suffering specialist. ...(or) to nominate their favorite for a Nobel Laureate...”
“There's still a feeling that uncensored emotions make a good song. They don't. Pure emotion is just somebody screaming at you, or crying. It doesn't communicate anything.”
“Every good story needs a complication. We learn this fiction-writing fundamental in courses and workshops, by reading a lot or, most painfully, through our own abandoned story drafts. After writing twenty pages about a harmonious family picnic, say, or a well-received rock concert, we discover that a story without a complication flounders, no matter how lovely the prose. A story needs a point of departure, a place from which the character can discover something, transform himself, realize a truth, reject a truth, right a wrong, make a mistake, come to terms.”
“Until we have acquired genuine prayer, we are like people teaching children to begin to walk.”
“Good design, when itâ€™s done well, becomes invisible. Itâ€™s only when itâ€™s done poorly that we notice it. Think of it like a roomâ€™s air conditioning. We only notice it when itâ€™s too hot, too cold, making too much noise, or the unit is dripping on us. Yet, if the air conditioning is perfect, nobody say anything and we focus, instead, on the task at hand.”

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