Literary Quotes

Sometimes when I read a novel, I find amusing or useful or profound quotes. If I have a pen or a PC at hand I write it down. I can then use them in lectures or papers. As one does, I have collected more than I will ever need. If you read this, feel free to use a quote, all I ask in exchange is that you cite one of my papers (surely anyone can find a way to squeeze inappropriately a paper of mine in theirs…). Fell free also to comment (at the end).

A universal question

Men, men, men.

Perched on high stools by the bar, hats shoved back, at the tables calling for more bread no charge, swilling, wolfing gobfuls of sloppy food, their eyes bulging, wiping wetted moustaches. A pallid suetfaced young man polished his tumbler knife fork and spoon with his napkin. New set of microbes. A man with an infant’s saucestained napkin tucked round him shovelled gurgling soup down his gullet. A man spitting back on his plate: halfmasticated gristle: no teeth to chewchewchew it. Chump chop from the grill. Bolting to get it over. Sad booser’s eyes. Bitten off more that he can chew. Am I like that?

James Joyce, Ulysses.

On advertising as a signal.

“Advertising is rather expensive”, I remarked dubiously.

“Exactly so!” Said Mrs Micawber, preserving the same logical air.

Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

On R&D and scientific progress.

Only yesterday the practical things of today were decried as impractical, and the theories which will be practical tomorrow will always be branded as valueless games by the practical men of today.

William Feller, An Introduction to Probability Theory and Its Applications.

Skill.

“Somebody who writes birthday greetings to his daughter on the inside of an unpeeled banana must be mentally disturbed. But he must also be quite ingenious.”

“Yes, both.”

Jostein Gaarder, Sophies’s World

The origin of utility (see here).

“Henry saw his car, a hundred yards away, parked at an angle on the rise of the track, picked out in soft light against a backdrop of birch, flowering heather and thunderous black sky, and felt for the first time a gentle, swooning joy of possession. It is, of course, possible, permissible to love an inanimate object.”

Ian McEwan, Saturday

Reputation, herding, and informational cascade.

“What have I done?” he wailed. “My reputation’s ruined”

“That it is”, said Schweick with his native frankness, “after what happened you’re bound to have a ruined reputation for the rest of your life, because when your friends read about it in the papers, they’ll add to it”.

Jaroslaw Hasek, The Good Soldier Schweick.

Beliefs.

Lo Stato Maggiore ha mille informazioni, ma su mille una sola buona, e così non credono a nessuna.

Dino Buzzati, Il deserto dei Tartari.

Utility and ethics.

It may not be nice to be good, little 66558321, it may be horrible to be good.

Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork orange.

The value of commitment.

And yet, in a sense, in choosing to be deprived of the ability to make an ethical choice, you have in the sense really chosen to be good.

Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange.

For Catholics. What is Limbo?

Limbo was for babies that hadn’t been baptised and pets. It was nice, like heaven, only God wasn’t there. Jesus visited there sometimes, and Mary his mother as well. They had a caravan there. Cats and dogs and babies and guineas pigs and goldfish.

Roddy Doyle, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha.

Corruption and low pay.

A customs officer depends, for a decent income, on traffic. Goods pass through, he not unreasonably impounds them, their owners see reason, an accommodation is reached, the customs man’s family gets new clothes. Nobody minds this arrangement; everyone knows how little public officials are paid. Negotiations are honourably conducted on both sides.

Salman Rushdie, Shame, p 51.

Irresponsible lending.

He now had twenty-two different Visa cards, and nineteen of them he had already run out to the absolute limit of their credit line. His only hope was that yet more unsolicited Visa card applications would arrive in the mail - he seemed to receive at least two a month - and he would have a little more rope to ponzi around with.

Tom Wolfe, A Man in Full.

Planning and discounting.

Skord had lived in the world for long enough to understand the human life was a sad and long drawn-out affair. People caught colds, endured corns and saddle-sores, and their plans either did not go very well or failed altogether.

Kerstin Ekman The Forest of Hours.

The role of education.

Basically, Lily’s philosophy of education was simple: it didn’t matter what Man Kee studied so long as he didn’t like it. The main purpose of his lessons was to train his character, foster diligence, teach him a discipline and obedience. Acquiring knowledge was almost secondary to this.

Timothy Mo, Sweet Sour.

Social mobility.

It appears that Mr Kant likes you. I should not seem surprised. That is the basis on which business is conducted the world over, and always has been. The notion of a meritocracy is a very recent, and very limited fantasy, designed merely to keep the C1’s hard at it on their career ladders by day and on their stairs climbing machines in their supposedly free time.

James Hawes, Rancid Aluminium.

Marginal rate of substitution.

The Conants had shied away from accepting; they distrusted the Mathiases, the little they knew of them. Sally, big blonde expensively dressed Sally, made the show of lugging gallon bottles of milk home from the supermarket to save a few pennies delivery would cost, yet they drank wine by the case.

John Updike, Marry Me.

Should you tell a friend to study economics?

“But, Baba,” protested Dipankar, blinking in distress, “Economics is the worst possible qualification for running anything. It’s the most useless, impractical subject in the world”.

Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy.

Observability and contractibility.

Il metro di valutazione, per l’operaio e per il contadino, è facile, quantitativo: se la fabbrica sforna tanti pezzi all’ora, se il podere rende.

Nei nostri mestieri è diverso non ci sono metri di valutazione quantitativa. Come si misura la bravura di un prete, di un pubblicitario, di un PRM?

Luciano Bianciardi, La vita agra.

The welfare state.

And here is Mr Micawber without any suitable position or employment. Where does that responsibility rest? Clearly on society. Then I would make a fact so disgraceful known, and boldly challenge society to set it right.

Charles Dickens, David Copperfield.

Price as a Signal of Quality.

Aver abbassata la molenda sotto quel che esigeva ogni mugnaio meno esigente, lo screditava presso i buoni clienti; chiamava al mulino gli altri, i falliti, i disperati, i cattivi pagatori o per malizia o per miseria.

Riccardo Bacchelli, Il mulino del Po.

Beautiful words.

The drowning voice of the professor continued to wind itself slowly round and round the coils it spoke of, doubling, trebling, quadrupling its somnolent energy as the coil multiplied its ohms of resistance.

James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

Income vs. Leisure.

Furthermore, he was about to become chief clerk. It was time to be serious. Accordingly, he was renouncing the flute, elevated sentiments, and the imagination.

Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary.

Unstable preferences.

‘They say they trust you and they believe you.’

‘Good. They are sensible fellows.’ Thurso looked down approvingly. ‘Why aren’t they moving?’ he said impatiently after a moment.

‘They are not coming up, sir. They say they believe you now, but you may change your mind while they are on the way up and you cannot gantee that you will not change your mind as nobody can gantee future thinking of his mind.’

Barry Unsworth, Sacred Hunger.

Risk Loving, or the biggest gamble ever made.

FAUST

If ever flattering lies of yours can please

And soothe my soul to self-sufficiency

And make me one of pleasure’s devotees,

Then take my soul, for I desire to die:

And that’s a wager!

MEPHISTOPHELES

Done!

FAUST

And done again!

Goethe, Faust vol. I.

Incentives change behaviour.

“Until that time the Russians had always worn long beards... The tsar, in order to reform that custom, ordered that gentlemen, merchants, and other subjects, except priests and peasants, should each pay a tax of one hundred rubles a year if they wished to keep their beards; the commoners had to pay one kopek each... [T]here were many old Russians who, after having their beards shaved off, saved them preciously, in order to have them placed in their coffins, fearing that they would not be allowed to enter heaven without their beards.”

Jean Rousset de Missy, Life of Peter the Great (c. 1730).

Nicely presented.

Bilquis entered labour – the rebirth was imminent – Raza Hyder awaited it, stiffly seated in an anteroom of the military hospital’s maternity ward. And after eight hours of howling and heaving and bursting blood vessels in her cheeks and using the filthy language that is permitted to ladies only during parturition, at last, pop! she managed it, the miracle of life.

Salman Rushdie, Shame, p 89.

If you have studied in Pisa you will agree.

Ahi Pisa, vituperio delle genti

del bel paese là dove ‘l sì suona,

poi che i vicini a te punir son lenti,

muovasi la Capraia e la Gorgona,

e faccian siepe ad Arno in su la foce,

sì ch’egli annieghi in te ogni persona!

Ché se il conte Ugolino aveva voce

d’aver tradita te delle castella,

non dovei tu i figliuoi porre a tal croce.

Innocenti facea l’età novella,

novella Tebe, Uguiccione e ‘l Brigata

e gli altri due che il canto suso appella.

Dante, Inferno. Canto XXXIII.

O Pisa, scandal of all folk whose tongue

In our fair country speaks the sound of sì

Since thy dull neighbours will not smite such wrong

With vengeance, move Gorgona from the sea

Caprera move, and dam up Arno’s mouth,

Till every living soul is drowned in thee

For though Count Ugolin in very truth

Betrayed thee of thy castles, it was crime

To torture those poor children; tender youth,

O cruel city, Thebes of modern time,

Made Hugh and Il Brigata innocent

And the other two whose name are in my rhyme.

(translation by Dorothy Sayers)

Private education.

She was never very specific about her background. Martha’s impression was that she was a little girl from a decent by a quite ordinary family in Massilon, Ohio, who went to public schools - girls who went to private schools always managed to work that into the conversation within fifteen minutes of meeting you - and came to Atlanta and captivated some sort of software marketing whiz.

Tom Wolfe, A Man in Full, p 214.

On the value of good language.

Skord thought that there was nothing as pleasing and interesting and instructive as listening to someone who could speak beautifully.

Kerstin Ekman, The Forest of Hours, p127

Social capital exists.

Only once - thank god - had a group run out without paying. Terrible, shocking. How could they have such a degraded sense of their responsibilities? All right to cheat the government of tax - like at Husband’s old place of work - but not to do it to the person whose face you saw.

Timothy Mo, Sweet Sour.