Saturday, November 16, 2013

From Margaret Drabble's novel The Radiant Way



Aphorism 144: "Check your battles, you may have selected the wrong ones!"
Full Quote: "Is it the wrong battle I have been fighting, all these years?"
 
Aphorism 145: "Choose your own parable!"
Full Quote: "'That's what people say, these days,' she said. 'We all choose our own parables.'"

 Aphorism 146: "Be alert to the unsatisfactory nature of knowledge!"
Full Quote: "Propped up, alone, in her white five-year-old nightdress, she studied the unsatisfactory nature of knowledge."

Aphorism 147: "Contenious comments are usually not worth presenting reasoned arguments!"
Full Quote: "She applauded this decision.  It was not worth presenting reasoned arguments to Mrs Harper."

Aphorism 148: "Summon up that small ghost called inspiration!"
Full Quote: "...in order to learn again the smell of the mountain air, the shapes of the hill, the darknesses of the forests, in order to summon up that small ghost called inspiration that brings to life our documents and transcriptions, our months in libraries and years at our own desks..."