Welcome to my commonplace blog

The goal of this blog is to preserve a few ideas and quotes from books I read. In the old days when books were not so readily available, people kept "commonplace books" where they copied choice passages they wanted to be able to remember and perhaps reuse. The idea got picked up by V.F.D. and it's common knowledge that most of that organization's volunteers have kept commonplace books, and so have Laura and I.

I'm sure there are many other Internet sites and blogs dedicated to the same idea. But this one is mine. Feel free to look around and leave comments, but not spam.

24 July 2010

Native Son (Richard Wright)

Yowza this is a sad book!

I read it because the "unfathomable question" Who knows when some slight shock, disturbing the delicate balance between social order and thirsty aspiration, shall send the skyscrapers in our cities toppling? is one of the keys to the Vernacularly Fastened Door at the end of Lemony Snicket's The Penultimate Peril.


Quotes:

Who knows when some slight shock, disturbing the delicate balance between social order and thirsty aspiration, shall send the skyscrapers in our cities toppling? (Max)

These were the rhythms of his life: indifference and violence. ... That was the way he lived; he passed his days trying to defeat or gratify powerful impulses in a world he feared.

he lacks the charm of the average, harmless, genial, grinning southern darky so beloved by the American people

a particle of white rock had detached itself from that looming mountain of white hate and had rolled down the slope, stopping still at his feet. The word had become flesh

He had lived and acted on the assumption that he was alone, and now he saw that he had not been. What he had done made others suffer.

Injustice which lasts for three long centuries and which exists among millions of people over thousands of square miles of territory, is injustice no longer; it is an accomplished fact of life. (it's not injustice, but oppression) (Max)

Bigger, an American product, a native son of this land. (Richard Wright)

Life becomes sufficient unto life; the rewards of living are found in living. (Richard Wright)

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