Category Archives: Quotations

Things people said.

‘La France, c’est la langue française’ (Fernand Braudel)

Posted on August 10, 2023 by JMN

“Oui, j’ai une patrie: la langue française.” (Yes, I do have a homeland: the French language.) (Albert Camus) Sometimes — and I don’t expect to make friends with this statement — all you have the energy for in this life … Continue reading →

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Ocean, On Writing

Posted on August 9, 2023 by JMN

“It’s very hard to write well accidentally.” (Ocean Vuong) (c) 2023 JMN — EthicalDative. All rights reserved

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Picasso’s ‘Man with a Lamb’ (Sculpture)

Posted on August 8, 2023 by JMN

… With this body of a humble, fragile man who, like an offering, carries a lamb in his arms… Picasso deliberately joined the camp of the sick, the degenerate, the precarious (the Jew, the Romani, the disabled, the homosexual, the … Continue reading →

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‘Shouldn’t Be Hard’ But IS

Posted on July 30, 2023 by JMN

It shouldn’t be hard to agree that the highest purpose of the First Amendment is to protect speech we like the least — speech we are sure is pernicious, bigoted, obscene or potentially harmful to health. Thus spaketh Bret Stephens, … Continue reading →

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Etel Adnan: ‘Words Are Social’

Posted on July 26, 2023 by JMN

Lebanese-American painter-poet-novelist Etel Adnan (1925-2021) was interviewed by Gabriel Coxhead for the June 2018 issue of Apollo. In the 1970s, having returned to Beirut to work as a journalist, she was forced to flee to Paris when the civil war … Continue reading →

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A Crestomathy of Crescendos

Posted on July 25, 2023 by JMN

From prose pieces published in Poetry, July/August 2023: Douglas Kearney, “On Spite: Folly Comes Daily” … Kit, who pokes at poetry with a long sharp stick to make certain it’s dead before skulking past it… *** Elisa Gabbert, “On Self-Pity: … Continue reading →

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Notes on Poetry (Feelings)

Posted on July 24, 2023 by JMN

“Whatever happened to Gary Cooper? The strong silent type. That was an American. He wasn’t in touch with his feelin’s. He just did what he hadda do. So what they didn’t know is once they got Gary Cooper in touch … Continue reading →

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Basically It’s Sort of Like About Two Tech Dudes Grokking AI

Posted on July 23, 2023 by JMN

… It’s about a woman named Joan who’s sort oflikea mid-level manager at what appears to bea big Silicon valley tech company,and she discovers one day thatunbeknowst to herthere is a TV show being made about her lifestarring Salma Hayek … Continue reading →

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The ‘Weird Causality’ of Passive Voice

Posted on July 20, 2023 by JMN

“Mistakes were made.” (Politicians from Nixon forward) Jamelle Bouie cites a passage from Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in America by the historians Karen and Barbara Fields: Consider the statement “black Southerners were segregated because of their skin color”— a … Continue reading →

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Eco-ing How to Read Poetry

Posted on July 16, 2023 by JMN

Entering a novel is like going on a climb in the mountains: you have to learn the rhythm of respiration, acquire the pace; otherwise you stop right away. The same thing is true of poetry. Just recall how unbearable poems … Continue reading →

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