About how I feel, about
"This may not be the most normal way to look at things, though. Girls my age never use the word fair. Ordinary girls as young as I am are basically indifferent to whether things are fair or not. The central question for them is not whether something is fair but whether or not it's beautiful or will make them happy. Fair is a man's word, finally, but I can't help feeling that it is also exactly the right word for me now. And because questions of beauty and happiness have become such difficult and convoluted propositions for me now, I suspect, I find myself clinging instead to other standards-like, whether or not something is fair or honest or universally true."-Haruki Murakami
(I think I've posted that befor
e but some of them just really stick in my head and repeat.)
"'Dont try. It'll come when we need it. All of us have photographic memories, but spend a lifetime learning how to block off the things that are really in there. Simmons here has worked on it for twenty years and now we've got the method down to where we can recall anything that's been read once. Would you like, someday, Montag, to read Plato's Republic?'
'Of course!'
'I am Plato's Republic. Like to read Marcus Aurelius? Mr. Simmons is Marcus.'
'How do you do?' said Mr. Simmons.
'Hello,' said Montag.
'I want you to meet Johnathan Swift, the author of that evil political book, Gulliver's Travels! And this other fellow is Charles Darwin, and this one is Schopenhauer, and this one is Einstein, and this one here at my elbow is Mr. Albert Schweitzer, a very kind philosopher indeed. Here we all are, Montag. Aristophanes and Mahatma Ghandi and Gautama Buddha and Confucius and Thomas Love Peacock and Thomas Jefferson and Mr. Lincoln, if you please. We are also Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.'
Everyone laughed quietly..."-Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
"'Listen. Easy now,' said the old man gently. 'I know. You're afraid of making mistakes. Don't be. Mistakes can be profited by. Man, when I was younger I shoved my ignorance in people's faces. They beat me with sticks. By the time I was forty my blunt instrument had been honed to a fine cutting point for me. If you hide your ignorance, no will will hit you and you'll never learn.'"-Ray Bradbury Fahrenheit 451
"'You did what you had to do. It was coming on for a long time.'
'Yes, I believe that, if there's nothing else I believe. It saved itself up to happen. I was saving something up, I went around doing one thing and feeling another. God, it was all there. It's a wonder it didn't show on me, like fat. And now here I am, messing up your life, too. They might follow me here...'"- Ray Bradbury Fahrenheit 451
O: You could ride a ten speed when you were 5?
Jay-Z: I was too short to reach the pedals, so I put my legs through the V of the frame. I was famous. The little kid who could ride the ten speed.
O: Wow. That's one great memory. Any others?
Jay-Z: The boat. For some reason there was an abandoned boat on this block. We used to play on it all the time, everyday.
O: You know, I also grew up poor, but rural poor is different. Did you feel poor?
Jay-Z: Not at all. Probably the first time was in school when I couldn't get the newest sneakers. We didn't have elaborate meals, but we didn't go without. We ate a lot of chicken. You know, 'cause chicken's cheap. We ate so much chicken- chicken backs, chicken everything. To this day, I can only eat small pieces or else I feel funny.
O: That's too much chicken in a lifetime. So when you were 5, your family moved to the Marcy projects - and then your father left when you were 11. When you look back at that, what did your 11-year-old self feel?
Jay-Z: Anger. At the whole situation. Because when you're growing up, your dad is your superhero. Once you've let yourself fall that in love with someone, once you put him on such a high pedestal and he let's you down, you never want to experience that pain again. So I remember just being really quiet and really cold. Never wanting to let myself get close to someone like that again. I carried that feeling throughout my life, until my father and I met up before he died.
O: Wow. I've never heard a man phrase it that way. You know, I've done many shows about divorce, and the real crime is when the kids aren't told. They just wake up one day and their dad is gone. Did that happen to you?
Jay-Z: We were told our parents would separate, but the reasons weren't explained. My mom prepared us more than he did. I don't think he was ready for that level of discussion and emotion. He was a guy who was pretty detached from his feelings.
O: Did you wonder why he left?
Jay-Z: I summed it up that they weren't getting along. There was a lot of arguing.
(I think I've posted that befor
e but some of them just really stick in my head and repeat.)
"'Dont try. It'll come when we need it. All of us have photographic memories, but spend a lifetime learning how to block off the things that are really in there. Simmons here has worked on it for twenty years and now we've got the method down to where we can recall anything that's been read once. Would you like, someday, Montag, to read Plato's Republic?'
'Of course!'
'I am Plato's Republic. Like to read Marcus Aurelius? Mr. Simmons is Marcus.'
'How do you do?' said Mr. Simmons.
'Hello,' said Montag.
'I want you to meet Johnathan Swift, the author of that evil political book, Gulliver's Travels! And this other fellow is Charles Darwin, and this one is Schopenhauer, and this one is Einstein, and this one here at my elbow is Mr. Albert Schweitzer, a very kind philosopher indeed. Here we all are, Montag. Aristophanes and Mahatma Ghandi and Gautama Buddha and Confucius and Thomas Love Peacock and Thomas Jefferson and Mr. Lincoln, if you please. We are also Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.'
Everyone laughed quietly..."-Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
"'Listen. Easy now,' said the old man gently. 'I know. You're afraid of making mistakes. Don't be. Mistakes can be profited by. Man, when I was younger I shoved my ignorance in people's faces. They beat me with sticks. By the time I was forty my blunt instrument had been honed to a fine cutting point for me. If you hide your ignorance, no will will hit you and you'll never learn.'"-Ray Bradbury Fahrenheit 451
"'You did what you had to do. It was coming on for a long time.'
'Yes, I believe that, if there's nothing else I believe. It saved itself up to happen. I was saving something up, I went around doing one thing and feeling another. God, it was all there. It's a wonder it didn't show on me, like fat. And now here I am, messing up your life, too. They might follow me here...'"- Ray Bradbury Fahrenheit 451
O: You could ride a ten speed when you were 5?
Jay-Z: I was too short to reach the pedals, so I put my legs through the V of the frame. I was famous. The little kid who could ride the ten speed.
O: Wow. That's one great memory. Any others?
Jay-Z: The boat. For some reason there was an abandoned boat on this block. We used to play on it all the time, everyday.
O: You know, I also grew up poor, but rural poor is different. Did you feel poor?
Jay-Z: Not at all. Probably the first time was in school when I couldn't get the newest sneakers. We didn't have elaborate meals, but we didn't go without. We ate a lot of chicken. You know, 'cause chicken's cheap. We ate so much chicken- chicken backs, chicken everything. To this day, I can only eat small pieces or else I feel funny.
O: That's too much chicken in a lifetime. So when you were 5, your family moved to the Marcy projects - and then your father left when you were 11. When you look back at that, what did your 11-year-old self feel?
Jay-Z: Anger. At the whole situation. Because when you're growing up, your dad is your superhero. Once you've let yourself fall that in love with someone, once you put him on such a high pedestal and he let's you down, you never want to experience that pain again. So I remember just being really quiet and really cold. Never wanting to let myself get close to someone like that again. I carried that feeling throughout my life, until my father and I met up before he died.
O: Wow. I've never heard a man phrase it that way. You know, I've done many shows about divorce, and the real crime is when the kids aren't told. They just wake up one day and their dad is gone. Did that happen to you?
Jay-Z: We were told our parents would separate, but the reasons weren't explained. My mom prepared us more than he did. I don't think he was ready for that level of discussion and emotion. He was a guy who was pretty detached from his feelings.
O: Did you wonder why he left?
Jay-Z: I summed it up that they weren't getting along. There was a lot of arguing.