May 2009 Archives

“I’m frightened of eggs, worse than frightened, they revolt me. That white round thing without any holes . . . have you ever seen anything more revolting than an egg yolk breaking and spilling its yellow liquid? Blood is jolly, red. But egg yolk is yellow, revolting.”

—Patrick Merrell, Bird Brain-Teasers, 2008.

—Patrick Merrell, Bird Brain-Teasers, 2008.

“Birds can see a world of color far richer than we can. Humans have only three types of cones in each eye, whereas birds have four. Since each type interprets visual input differently, the picture formed in a bird’s brain contains colors, including some in the ultraviolet range, that we can only imagine.”

—Patrick Merrell, Bird Brain-Teasers, 2008.

“The word of YHVH is refined
As silver and gold are refined.
When these letters came forth, they were all refined,
Carved precisely, sparkling, flashing.
All of Israel saw the letters
Flying through space in every direction,
Engraving themselves on the tablets of stone.”

—The Zohar, quoted in People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks, 2008.

“Sundays have a different color (usually white), a different texture (starched lined), and a different flavor (kind of like mashed potatoes) than even Saturdays (which are crimson and taste like weenies and beer). In some American cities, incidentally, it’s illegal to sell beer on Sundays, but that’s a different story.”

—Tom Robbins, B Is for Beer, 2009.

“Sometimes, in my apartment, I turn on both chandeliers, and then I lie down amid all that light, and I just start laughing. A man in hiding, and yet he’s surrounded by chandeliers!
    There—I’m revealing the secret to a successful escape. The police searched for me in darkness: but I hid myself in light.”

—Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger, 2008.

“I am a big fan of this anti-type typography.”

—Steven Heller, “Graphic Content | Hand Lettering”, The New York Times, May 7, 2009.

“Painting is the silence of thought and the music of sight.”

—Orhan Pamuk, My Name is Red, 2001.

“Before the art of illumination there was blackness and afterward there will also be blackness. Through our colors, paints, art and love, we remember that Allah had commanded us to ‘See’! . . . All great masters, in their work, seek that profound void within color and outside time.”

—Orhan Pamuk, My Name is Red, 2001.

“ ‘My dear master, explain red to somebody who has never known red.’
    ‘If we touched it with the tip of a finger, it would feel like something between iron and copper. If we took it into our palm, it would burn. If we tasted it, it would be full-bodied, like salted meat. If we took it between our lips, it would fill our mouths. If we smelled it, it’d have the scent of a horse. If it were a flower, it would smell like a daisy, not a red rose.‘. . .
    ‘What is the meaning of red?’ the blind miniaturist . . . asked again.
‘The meaning of a color is that it is there before us and we see it,’ said the other. ‘Red cannot be explained to he who cannot see.’ ”

—Orhan Pamuk, My Name is Red, 2001.

“ ‘After beholding the portraits of the Venetian masters, we realize with horror,’ said my father, ‘that, in painting, eyes can no longer simply be holes in a face, always the same, but must be just like our own eyes, which reflect light like a mirror and absorb it like a well.’ ”

—Orhan Pamuk, My Name is Red, 2001.

“No object is mysterious. The mystery is your eye.”

—Elizabeth Bowen, 21st Century Dictionary of Quotations, edited by the Princeton Language Institute, 1993.

“The hues of the opal, the light of the diamond, are not to be seen if the eye is too near.”

—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 21st Century Dictionary of Quotations, edited by the Princeton Language Institute, 1993.

“There is one spectacle grander than the sea, that is the sky; there is one spectacle grander than the sky, that is the interior of the soul.”

—Victor Hugo, 21st Century Dictionary of Quotations, edited by the Princeton Language Institute, 1993.

“Love is like quicksilver in the hand. Leave the fingers open and it stays. Clutch it, and it darts away.”

—Dorothy Parker, 21st Century Dictionary of Quotations, edited by the Princeton Language Institute, 1993.

“Love is the only gold.”

—Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 21st Century Dictionary of Quotations, edited by the Princeton Language Institute, 1993.

“Of all writers, there are none whom I despise more than anthologists, who search on all sides for scraps out of other people’s works, which they cram into their own like slabs of turf into a lawn. They are not better than compositors arranging letters so that in combinations they will form a book, for which they have done nothing but provide the use of their hands. I should like the originality of a book to be respected, and it seems to me that there is a kind of profanation in removing its component parts from their sanctuary and exposing them to contempt when they do not deserve it.
    When a man has nothing new to say, why doesn’t he keep quiet? Why do things have to be used twice over? ‘But I want to put them in a new order.’ ‘What a clever thing to do! You come into my library, you move books from a high shelf to a low one, and from a low shelf to a high one: a fine piece of work that is!’”

—Montesquieu, Persian Letters, 1721, translated by C.J.Betts, 1973.

“It seems to me, Usbek, that all our judgements are made with reference covertly to ourselves. I do not find it surprising that the negroes paint the devil sparkling white, and their gods black as coal, or that certain tribes have a Venus with her breasts hanging down to her thighs, or in brief that all the idolatrous peoples represent their gods with human faces, and endow them will all their own impulses. It has been well said that if triangles had a god, they would give him three sides.”

—Montesquieu, Persian Letters, 1721, translated by C.J.Betts, 1973.

“ ‘My name’s Midori,’ she said. ‘“Green.” But green looks terrible on me. Weird, huh? It’s like I’m cursed, don’t you think? My sister’s name is Momoko: “Peach GIrl.”’
    ‘Does she look good in pink?’
    ‘She looks great in pink! She was born to wear pink. It’s totally unfair.’ ”

—Haruki Murikami, Norwegian Wood, 1989; translated by Jay Rubin, 2000.