Absurdity

Dec. 17th, 2024 05:12 pm
pjthompson: quotes (quotei)
Random quote of the day:

“ABSURDITY, n. A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.”

—Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary



Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Bert and Ernie, Celine Dion, or the Band of the Coldstream Guards. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Quixotic

Nov. 18th, 2022 02:29 pm
pjthompson: quotes (quotei)
Random quote of the day:

“QUIXOTIC, adj. Absurdly chivalric, like Don Quixote. An insight into the beauty and excellence of this incomparable adjective is unhappily denied to him who has the misfortune to know that the gentleman's name is pronounced Ke-ho-tay.

—Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary




Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Bert and Ernie, Celine Dion, or the Band of the Coldstream Guards. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Absurd

Apr. 27th, 2022 03:36 pm
pjthompson: quotes (quotei)
Random quote of the day:

“The realization that life is absurd cannot be an end, but only a beginning. This is a truth nearly all great minds have taken as their starting point. It is not this discovery that is interesting, but the consequences and rules of action drawn from it.”

—Albert Camus, Alger Républicain, October 20, 1938



Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Desus and Mero, Beyoncé, or the Marine Corps Marching Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.
pjthompson: laughing (laughing)


I was having a conversation earlier with a close friend about schoolyard trauma—the name-calling and taunting so common in the proto-teen and teenage years—and I explained to her that I learned early on that humor could be my great shield against the worst of it. I was a freak, you see. I had an early growth spurt, so I was 5’3” by the time I was 9, 5’6” by the time I was 11 or so. I topped out at 5’7” in high school but by that time most of my contemporaries had either caught up with me or surpassed me. However, those early growth years—and my red hair—made me stand out. Anyone who stands out in elementary school, who is in any way not average, is going to come in for abuse. Fortunately, my size helped me avoid the physical side of that, but that was not the case with verbal abuse. So I developed a wicked sharp tongue.

I grew up in the Oakwood section of Venice, California. Back in the olden days, it was a poor section of Los Angeles, and quite diverse ethnically. There were some white kids at my school, but mostly not, and I only ever had one close white friend before junior high. Everybody supported each other, though, helped each other out. Oh, I won’t paint a pie in the sky portrait here. It may have been a Rainbow Coalition, but kids being kids, there were fights, and playground posturing. and tough talk. I learned early on the advantages of having a sharp tongue and have spent most of my life trying to overcome those early habits (mostly successfully, but it’s surprising how that schoolyard bad mouth can surface out of nowhere). Even back then I laced the tough talk with humor. If I could make the other kids laugh at my adversary they were more likely to leave me alone. I was raised by a mother with her own wicked sense of humor, so I had a good example set before me.

As I transitioned from the tough neighborhood to the more mixed environment of junior high (ages 12 to 14)—middle class and even some upper middle class mixed with the tough kids—I discovered even more the benefits of humor. I’m an introvert, but I learned to be something of a class clown. If I could fake extroversion and hold up that shield of laughter—laughter not directed at the cost of someone else—they were less likely to pick on me. And if any of the mean girls got catty, others would sometimes counter it with, “She’s funny. Leave her alone.”

I’ve carried that shield with me most of my life. It’s such a fundamental part of my nature I couldn’t let it go even if I wanted to—and I don’t want to. I don’t want to be mean, I don’t want to be sharp-tongued, but I find it infinitely healthier to keep a well-trained eye out for the absurdities of life and of people. Naturally, this creeps into my fiction. I’ve written both comic and serious stories and novels, but even my most serious novels are well-laced with humor. Sometimes it’s character-driven, sometimes it’s, well, frankly bordering on slapstick. I just can’t leave aside those absurdities. They are everywhere I look.

I don’t think they undercut the more serious passages of my writing, but I’m inside my own head and may not have an objective eye there. I cut out some of the humor in rewrites, but not all. The few times I’ve tried to cut it all I’ve wound up eviscerating the life from my stories. It’s my style, you see. It takes a long time for a writer—I guess any artist—to find the style that is uniquely their own.

So it’s best not to look a gift Muse in the mouth. Sharp tongue or not.

 
pjthompson: quotes (quotei)

Random quote of the day:

“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one.”

—Voltaire, letter to Frederick II of Prussia, 6 April 1767

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Orville and Wilbur, Katy Perry, or the Avengers. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Absurdum

Jan. 2nd, 2018 11:38 am
pjthompson: quotes (quotei)
Random quote of the day:

“It is human nature to think wisely and to act in an absurd fashion.”

—Anatole France, Le livre de mon ami



Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Lucy and Ethel, Justin Bieber, or the Kardashian Klan. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Virtue

Feb. 2nd, 2015 09:42 am
pjthompson: quotes (quotei)

Random quote of the day:

“All great virtues have an absurd aspect.”

—Albert Camus, The Notebooks, 1942-1952, tr. Justin O’Brien

virtue4WP@@@

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

pjthompson: quotes (quotei)

Random quote of the day: 

“Once he has reached the absurd and tries to live accordingly, a man always perceives that consciousness is the hardest thing in the world to maintain. Circumstances are almost always against it. He must live his lucidity in a world where dispersion is the rule.”

—Albert Camus, The Notebooks, 1942-1951 (tr. Justin O’Brien)

 lucidity4WP@@@

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Mystified

Apr. 22nd, 2013 09:13 am
pjthompson: quotes (quotei)

Random quote of the day:

“Perhaps I’m old and tired, but I always think that the chances of finding out what really is going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say hang the sense of it and just keep yourself occupied.”

—Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

 mystified4WP@@@

 

Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

 

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

pjthompson: (Default)
Random quote of the day:


“…in principle, I am against manifestos, as I am against principles…"

—Tristan Tzara, dada manifesto





(If you'd like to read the entire manifesto, it's here. Quite the torrent of absurdity and amusement. Dadadadadada.)







Illustrated version. )


Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.
pjthompson: (Default)
Random quote of the day:


In love, everything is true, everything is false; it is the one subject on which one cannot express absurdity."

Nicholas Chalfont Nicolas Chamfort


ETA: All praise to [livejournal.com profile] geniusofevil for figuring this one out! My only defense is that I had a late night and I'm tired.


Illustrated version. )

The stumping of the Google thing.

I usually write down where I get quotes from in the quote file beneath the quote. This is because 3-4 years later when they pop back out of the quote file, I often have no idea where I got them. In the case of today's quote, there was no accompanying notation, so I fired up the ol' Google Machine and typed in "Nicholas Chalfont."

No Nicholas Chalfont. Plenty of Nicholases, several Chalfonts, but no Nicholas Chalfont. I went over to Wiki and tried there, realizing it was futile because if he'd been on Wiki he would have been on Google.

Then I tried Nicholas Chalfont along with key words from the quote, figuring he might just have been buried so deeply in he queue of most popular references to Nicholases and Chalfonts that I'd have to coax him out with more detail. No matter how much detail I put in, no Nicholas Chalfont, no quote.

So I (and Google) have no idea who he is, where I got this quote, if he's even a real person and not some fictional character. If you have any idea, please contact Google immediately and tell them to get their act together. You could cc me as well.

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