“And still deeper the meaning of that story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting, mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.”
“I’ll be your mirror
Reflect what you are, in case you don’t know
I’ll be the wind, the rain and the sunset
The light on your door to show that you’re home
When you think the night has seen your mind
That inside you’re twisted and unkind
Let me stand to show that you are blind
Please put down your hands
Cause I see you
I find it hard to believe you don’t know
The beauty that you are
But if you don’t let me be your eyes
A hand in your darkness, so you won’t be afraid
When you think the night has seen your mind
That inside you’re twisted and unkind
Let me stand to show that you are blind
Please put down your hands
Cause I see you
I’ll be your mirror”
“I have found quite a universal rule which in this matter seems to me valid above all other, and in all human affairs whether in word or deed: and that is to avoid affectation in every way possible as though it were some rough and dangerous reef; and (to pronounce a new word perhaps) to practice in all things a certain sprezzatura, so as to conceal all art and make whatever is done or said appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it.”
“Does such a thing as ‘the fatal flaw,’ that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside of literature? I used to think it didn’t. Now I think it does. And I think that mine is this: a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs.”
“There are visions a man can only tolerate in a mirror. To see them face-to-face turns him to stone.”
“This portrait would be to him the most magical of mirrors. As it had revealed to him his own body, so it would reveal to him his own soul. And when winter came upon it, he would still be standing where spring trembles on the verge of summer. When the blood crept from its face, and left behind a pallid mask of chalk with leaden eyes, he would keep the glamour of boyhood. Not one blossom of his loveliness would ever fade. Not one pulse of his life would ever weaken. Like the gods of the Greeks, he would be strong, and fleet, and joyous. What did it matter what happened to the coloured image on the canvas?”
“We were liars, cheats, she began—none of it was real. The trees had been made to move by a trick, it was only the branches. someone was filming from a helicopter, circling around. The poplars hadn’t moved at all, but the viewer would think they were leaping about dancing, that the whole forest was spinning round. The was sheer deception; it was disgusting.
I defended myself. ‘You’re quite wrong,’ I said. ‘The tree really was dancing because that is how the viewer will experience it. What matters was the effect we achieved, not whether the tree moved or if a technician created the idea of movement. Did you think the forest could walk around, when the trees are held by their roots? Don’t you think it’s a function of art to create the illusion of reality?’
’Art,’ she repeated bitterly. ‘If that’s what you were—artists—then everything would be real, even the dance, because you would know how to make the leaves move to your words, not to a wind machine or whatever it was. But you people can’t do anything like that—not you, or the others. You’re all clowns, and more contemptible than clowns. You’re worse than con men.’”
“But there’s some sort of revealing lesson here in the beyond-short-term viability-curve of advances in consumer technology. The career of vidophony conforms neatly to this curve’s classically annular shape: First there’s some sort of terrific, si-fi-like advance in consumer tech—like from aural to video phoning—which advance always, however, has certain unforseen disadvantages for the consumer; and then but the market-niches created by those disadvantages—like people’s stressfully vain repulsion at their own videophonic appearance—are ingeniously filled via sheer entrepreneurial verve; and yet the very advantages of these ingenious disadvantage-compensations seem all too often to undercut the original high-tech advance, resulting in consumer-recidivism and curve-closure and massive shirt-loss for precipitant investors. In the present case, the stress-and-vanity-compensations’ own evolution saw video-callers rejecting first their own faces and then even their own heavily masked an enhanced physical likenesses and finally covering the video-cameras altogether and transmitting attractively stylized static Tableaux to one another’s TPs. And, behind these lens-cap dioramas and transmitted Tableaux, callers of course found that they were once again stresslessly invisible, unvainly makeup- and toupeeless and baggy-eyed behind their celebrity-dioramas, once again free—since once again unseen—to doodle, blemish-scan, manicure, crease-check—while on their screen, the attractive, intensely attentive face of the well-appointed celebrity on the other end’s Tableau reassured them that they were the objects of a concentrated attention they didn’t have to exert.”
“...you process toward mastery through a series of plateaus, so there’s like radical improvement up to a certain plateau and then what looks like a stall, on the plateau, with the only way to get off one of the plateaus and climb up to the next one up ahead is with a whole lot of frustrating mindless repetitive practice and patience and hanging in there...
...Then the concentration and character shit starts. Then they really come after you. This is the crucial plateau where character starts to matter. Focus, self-consciousness, the chattering head, the cackling voices, the choking-issue, fear versus whatever isn’t fear, self-image, doubts, reluctances, little tight-lipped cold-footed men inside your mind, cackling about fear and doubt, chinks in the mental armor. Now these start to matter.”
“We choose the facts that we want to believe. We also choose our friends, lovers, and spouses not just because of the way we perceive them but because of the way they perceive us. Unlike phenomena in physics, in life, events can often obey one theory or another, and what actually happens can depend largely upon which theory we choose to believe. It is a gift of the mind to be extraordinarily open to accepting theory of ourselves that pushes us in the direction of survival, and even happiness. ”
“The longer-term effect of the capital markets’ preference for remaining at the same knowledge stage is stagnation. At some point, exploitation activities will run out of steam, and the company will be outflanked by competitors taking more exploratory approaches. Earnings will stop growing or even decline, and the analysts will savage the company for its lack of innovation. As James March points out, “An organization that engages exclusively in exploitation will ordinarily suffer from obsolescence.”
“The shame and disgrace of Alexei Alexandrovich and of Seryozha, and my own terrible shame—death will save it all. To die—and he will repent, pity, love, and suffer for me.’ With a fixed smile of compassion for herself, she sat in the chair, taking off and putting on the rings on her left hand, vividly imagining from all sides his feelings after her death.”
“Formerly, during his Parisian days, his love for artificiality had led him to abandon real flowers and to use in their place replicas faithfully executed by means of the miracles performed with India rubber and wire, calico and taffeta, paper and silk. He was the possessor of a marvelous collection of tropical plants, the result of the labors of skilful artists who knew how to follow nature and recreate her step by step, taking the flower as a bud, leading it to its full development, even imitating its decline, reaching such a point of perfection as to convey every nuance — the most fugitive expressions of the flower when it opens at dawn and closes at evening, observing the appearance of the petals curled by the wind or rumpled by the rain, applying dew drops of gum on its matutinal corollas; shaping it in full bloom, when the branches bend under the burden of their sap, or showing the dried stem and shrivelled cupules, when calyxes are thrown off and leaves fall to the ground.
This wonderful art had held him entranced for a long while, but now he was dreaming of another experiment.
He wished to go one step beyond. Instead of artificial flowers imitating real flowers, natural flowers should mimic the artificial ones.”
“Glamour is not something you possess but something you perceive, not something you have but something you feel. It is a subjective response to a stimulus. One may strive to construct a glamorous effect, but success depends on the perceiver’s receptive imagination.”
“‘What’s that, a gram?’ Price says, not apathetically.
‘New card.’ I try to act casual about it but I’m smiling proudly. ‘What do you think?’
‘Whoa,’ McDermott says, lifting it up, fingering the card, genuinely impressed. ‘Very
nice. Take a look.’ He hands it to Van Patten.
‘Picked them up from the printer’s yesterday,’ I mention.
‘Cool coloring,’ Van Patten says, studying the card closely.
‘That’s bone,’ I point out. ‘And the lettering is something called Silian Rail.’
‘Silian Rail?’ McDermott asks.
‘Yeah. Not bad, huh?’
‘It is very cool, Bateman,’ Van Patten says guardedly, the jealous bastard, ‘but that’s
nothing….’ He pulls out his wallet and slaps a card next to an ashtray. ‘Look at this.’
We all lean over and inspect David’s card and Price quietly says, ‘That’s really nice.’
A brief spasm of jealousy courses through me when I notice the elegance of the color
and the classy type. I clench my fist as Van Patten says, smugly, ‘Eggshell with
Romalian type…’ He turns to me. ‘What do you think?’
‘Nice,’ I croak, but manage to nod, as the busboy brings four fresh Bellinis.
‘Jesus,’ Price says, holding the card up to the light, ignoring the new drinks. ‘This is
really super. How’d a nitwit like you get so tasteful?’
I’m looking at Van Patten’s card and then at mine and cannot believe that Price
actually likes Van Patten’s better.
Dizzy, I sip my drink then take a deep breath.
‘But wait,’ Price says. ‘You ain’t seen nothin’ yet…’ He pulls his out of an inside coat
pocket and slowly, dramatically turns it over for our inspection and says, ‘Mine.’
Even I have to admit it’s magnificent.
Suddenly the restaurant seems far away, hushed, the noise distant, a meaningless
hum, compared to this card, and we all hear Price’s words: ‘Raised lettering, pale
nimbus white…’
‘Holy shit,’ Van Patten exclaims. ‘I’ve never seen…’
‘Nice, very nice,’ I have to admit. ‘But wait. Let’s see Montgomery’s.’
Price pulls it out and though he’s acting nonchalant, I don’t see how he can ignore its
subtle off-white coloring, its tasteful thickness. I am unexpectedly depressed that I
started this.
...
I pick up Montgomery’s card and actually finger it, for the sensation the card gives off
to the pads of my fingers.
‘Nice, huh?’ Price’s tone suggests he realizes I’m jealous.
‘Yeah,’ I say offhandedly, giving Price the card like I don’t give a shit, but I’m finding it
hard to swallow. ”
“But nothing disturbs the feeling of specialness like the presence of other human beings feeling identically special.”
“Elective ignorance was a great survival skill, perhaps the greatest.”
“Her description was as vivid as if she actually lived that way. It’s important to achieve this degree of concreteness when visualizing your ideal lifestyle. If you find that hard, if you can’t picture the kind of life you would like to have, try looking in interior decorating magazines for photos that grab you.”
“Recursion...is the primary characteristic that distinguishes the human mind from that of other animals. It underlies our ability not only to reflect upon our own minds, but also to simulate the minds of others. It allows us to travel mentally in time, inserting consciousness of the past or future into present consciousness. Recursion is also the main ingredient distinguishing human language from all other forms of animal communication...
First, then, a not-too-serious dictionary definition:
Recursion (rĭ-kûr’-zhən) noun. See recursion.
One problem here, of course, is that this implies an infinite loop, from which you may never escape in order to read the other stuff in this book. The following variant suggests a way out:
Recursion (rĭ-kûr’-zhən) noun. If you still don’t get it, see recursion.
This banks on the possibility that if you do get it after a round or two, you can escape and move on. If you don’t, well I’m sorry. ”
“glamour can serve many purposes: individual and collective; personal, social, commercial, or political. The story of glamour is the story of human longing and its cultural manifestations. Like other forms of rhetoric and art, glamour can embody good ideas or bad ones. It can inspire life-enhancing actions or destructive ones. Its meaning and its effects depend on the audience. But one thing is certain: glamour is not trivial.”