I love 23 and 41, but I think Dorian wins hands-down.
I didn't think of myself as an epigramster, but I do have a few. It's hard to resist dropping them in....
- Life’s not an optimisation problem – you just do the best you can with what you’ve got.
- What’s bad relationship advice is sometimes good life advice.
- You talk about social capital, or goodwill, like you’re these great altruists, but you’re basically keeping the receipts for every half-decent act of friendship or common courtesy.
- Gold-diggers do useful and productive work - they dig gold.
- Cognitive ability is a depreciating asset - by the time you’re in your thirties you’re meant to be able to *do* things
- I don't want an umbrella. I want someone to walk alongside me in the storm and help me laugh it away.
Thanks! So I finished “The Portrait of a Mirror”. Great book, very funny, especially at the end, and I love the descriptions and the epigrams, of course. By about half-way through I was wanting to linger over every sentence.
I can see now why my reviewer thought I was going for your style. I wasn’t, but there aren’t many of us writing about consultants and there are enough points in common that it almost felt a bit like reading into a mirror at the end. Strange feeling.
Will review, but I think I’ll re-read first. Not often I go straight back to page 1, but I will do for this.
Well as it starts with Oscar Wilde, "Be yourself: everyone else is already taken."
A classic
The epigram says in one line what the Substack essay was too afraid to admit
Too often!
Next exercise - epitaphs. Or cinquains.
Next exercise is HATS
The best!! Now wanting to sift through my copies and make a numbered list back of everything I've underlined
Reader underlines are the ultimate authorial honor.
I love 23 and 41, but I think Dorian wins hands-down.
I didn't think of myself as an epigramster, but I do have a few. It's hard to resist dropping them in....
- Life’s not an optimisation problem – you just do the best you can with what you’ve got.
- What’s bad relationship advice is sometimes good life advice.
- You talk about social capital, or goodwill, like you’re these great altruists, but you’re basically keeping the receipts for every half-decent act of friendship or common courtesy.
- Gold-diggers do useful and productive work - they dig gold.
- Cognitive ability is a depreciating asset - by the time you’re in your thirties you’re meant to be able to *do* things
- I don't want an umbrella. I want someone to walk alongside me in the storm and help me laugh it away.
(5 goes hard).
I especially like the social capital and gold diggers
Thanks! So I finished “The Portrait of a Mirror”. Great book, very funny, especially at the end, and I love the descriptions and the epigrams, of course. By about half-way through I was wanting to linger over every sentence.
I can see now why my reviewer thought I was going for your style. I wasn’t, but there aren’t many of us writing about consultants and there are enough points in common that it almost felt a bit like reading into a mirror at the end. Strange feeling.
Will review, but I think I’ll re-read first. Not often I go straight back to page 1, but I will do for this.
Oh good! Instant re-read is high praise, so thanks. Let me know if you review I’ll be eager to read.
Irony is most persuasive when it forgets to admire itself, and sophistication, like perfume, is best detected by others. Just a thought.
I pride myself on my humility.
Vanity without the inconvenience of honesty.
Oh this is a great one!
It's hard to find a truly great novel without great aphorisms; it's an under discussed quality.
Indeed!
Dialogue in a Denis Johnson novel I came across after posting this: "The world spits out a beautiful man like he was poison."
This is nicely said but I don’t think the message holds up!
"the will and attempt to write are not the desire to write." Maurice Blanchot
Gotta disagree w/ Maurice! For me, the will seems pretty tied up in desire.