days 4 and 5: favorite book and favorite quote.

considering i have lots to say about both of these topics, it may not have been the best idea to put them together in one post.

oh well.

since i’m such a book person, i don’t really have ONE favorite book. therefore i am going to approach the question like this:

if i could recommend a single book to anybody, what would i recommend? this usually means the life-changing ones. the ones that changed who i am as a person, how i look at the world, how i think about *things*…yeah.

the answer?

the poetry of pablo neruda

it’s a huge-ass anthology of selections from almost every published collection of his poetry, spanning his life and posthumous works. pablo, as i so lovingly call him, really did change my life. this started at age 17 in my high school creative writing class, and now, at 21, i’ve begun the preliminary research for my (college) senior paper. he’s shown me, probably as much as that passage from 1 corinthians 13, what love looks like. he’s taught me that political poetry isn’t just about pointing fingers at The Man. he makes me appreciate nature. and so on…this anthology shows all of who pablo is, and it’s well-worth both the cost and weight of this tome. if poetry is “not your thing”…well, you’re reading the wrong blog.

favorite quote…s.

a room without a book is like a body with a soul. [cicero]

music starts where the power of words stops. [translated, wagner]

and yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays. [shakespeare, from a midsummer night's dream]

hope is believing in a world that does not exist yet, a concession towards the kingdom of the heavens. to hope is to believe that life could be better. it is ultimately our belief in this “unbroken totality” that allows for the potential of tragedy. for without this hope, tragedy is no longer tragedy — it’s simply expected. without a belief that allows for a better world, the tragic is fact. [jon foreman]

you are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely. [ogden nash]

when heaven meets the earth, we’ll have no use for numbers to tell us who we are or what we’re worth. [sleeping at last, from "heaven breaks"]

we are only asked to love, to offer hope to the many hopeless. we don’t get to choose all the endings, but we are asked to play the rescuers. we won’t solve all mysteries and our hearts will certainly break in such a vulnerable life, but it is the best way. we were made to be lovers bold in broken places, pouring ourselves out again and again until we’re called home. [jamie tworkowski]

we’re just a million little gods causing rainstorms, turning every good thing to rust. [arcade fire, from "wake up"]

we’ll dance like flames for there’s no gravity, for now i’m just a candle trying to stay lit in this windy night. [matisyahu, from "silence"]

[okay, i need to quit with the lyrics. also, um, too many funny ones from shows and movies to even start.]

i’m a sucker for dystopian novels.

so i’ve nearly just finished with Brave New World (emphasis my own):

“V.P.S.?”
“Violent Passion Surrogate. Regularly once a month. We flood the whole system with adrenin. It’s the complete physiological equivalent of fear and rage. All the tonic effects of murdering Desdemona and being murdered by Othello, without any of the inconveniences.”
“But I like the inconveniences.”
“We don’t,” said the Controller. “We prefer to do things comfortably.”
“But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.“
“In fact, said Mustapha Mond, “you’re claiming the right to be unhappy.”
“All right then,” said the Savage defiantly, “I’m claiming the right to be unhappy.”
“Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen tomorrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind.” There was a long silence.
“I claim them all,” said the Savage at last.
Mustapha Mond shruggged his shoulders. “You’re welcome,” he said.

and i really have nothing to add to that.