mark monday

“I'm sorry," Billy says, "but I felt it was too organized. I like ellipses and teeny jottings and spontaneous poems and particularly all those devices like long lists of melancholy things.”
― Edmund White, Forgetting Elena

“It’s too bad that stupidity isn’t painful.”
― Anton LaVey

“Notice this rent in my garment; I am at a loss to explain its presence! I am even more puzzled by the existence of the universe.”
― Jack Vance, Tales of the Dying Earth

“When the tragedies of others become for us diversions, sad stories with which to enthrall our friends, interesting bits of data to toss out at cocktail parties, a means of presenting a pose of political concern, or whatever…when this happens we commit the gravest of sins, condemn ourselves to ignominy, and consign the world to a dangerous course. We begin to justify our casual overview of pain and suffering by portraying ourselves as do-gooders incapacitated by the inexorable forces of poverty, famine, and war. “What can I do?” we say, “I’m only one person, and these things are beyond my control. I care about the world’s trouble, but there are no solutions.” Yet no matter how accurate this assessment, most of us are relying on it to be true, using it to mask our indulgence, our deep-seated lack of concern, our pathological self-involvement.”
― Lucius Shepard, The Best of Lucius Shepard