The Beginning.

The Before Short Story Series, Part 1.

1. ‘Before: The Pill’. About how people in the future tackle physical imperfections. 
2. ‘Before: Taxi’. About the transport of the future.
3. ‘Before: The Red Button’. About the public security system and how a group of teenagers are trying to test its limits.
4. ‘Before: Interview’. About the future levels of computing power (and more).
5. ‘Before: Elections’. About the future organization of the world.
6. ‘Before: The Moon’. The largest story about a travel to the Moon.
7. ‘Before: Destiny’. About how future technologies can influence the destiny of a person.
8. ‘Before: Travel’. Can’t tell you what it is about (or else it will be too clear…)
9. ‘Before: Weather’. About how we influence the ecological balance today and how our descendants will have to deal with its consequences.
10. ‘Before: Politics’. Almost a thriller. 

Brandwashed.

‘For us marketing is a complete business process. We do not separate marketing tasks from other tasks facing our team. Detailed understanding of special capabilities of technical solutions by partners-manufacturers; a programme of competitive intelligence; the whole standard tool set for communication with a customer—site, specialized literature, seminars, exhibitions, …—this is marketing. All this in the end makes it possible to efficiently solve technical tasks set by our customers.

For one company, marketing is a classic concept of “organizing products’ manufacturing and  sales based on research of market demand in products and services”; for the other—“marketing is a market philosophy, strategy, and tactics of thinking and actions by the market participants; not only manufacturers and intermediaries in commercial activities…”’

‘One thing, though, is for sure. Whether by engineering cravings, imbuing products with chemically addictive properties, or turning shopping and spending into a game we can’t stop playing, companies and their marketers will only get better and better at manipulating our psyches and our desires to hook us on their brands and products.’

‘In surveying 2,035 children and adults, SIS found that 53 percent of adults and 56 percent of teens used brands they remembered from their childhoods, especially foods, beverages, and health-care and consumer/household goods—if you think companies and their marketers don’t know this and aren’t actively marketing to young children left and right, think again.’

‘Over the years, I’ve noticed another interesting phenomenon. When you show people a stack of photos from a party or an album of pictures just uploaded onto Facebook, the first thing they do is pause and look at the picture of themselves. Not so surprising—we’re a vain species. But what’s the second thing they do? Pause and look at the pictures of people surrounding them. Why? Because once they’ve taken note of how they appear, they need to analyze how they appear compared to others: Do they look as though they belong? Are they making the right impression? Are others looking on at them approvingly? This is telling. It shows that we as human beings never assess ourselves, our behaviors, or our decisions in a vacuum; we assess them in relation to everyone else.’

‘In short, the less confidence or self-esteem they had, the more they seemed to be dependent on brands. (One might even conclude from this that the larger the logo we wear, the less self-esteem we have.) In a way, it makes sense; it’s easier, after all, to fit in with your peer group by buying the same brand of sneakers than it is to transform your personality.’

‘In Asian countries, it’s perfectly normal for a man to own half a dozen expensive Swiss watches or for a woman to carefully put aside a month’s salary for a pair of Prada shoes. In Asia, more so than even in the United States, a person is what he or she wears.’

‘For a long time, both China and the Soviet Union felt like the underdogs of the global economy—many of their residents have felt as though the rest of the world doesn’t yet accept or respect them. So they tend to overcompensate for this national lack of self-esteem by buying brands—the louder, bolder, and more in-your-face expensive the better.’

‘The difference between a royal family and a brand is that a brand is focused on the next six months, while a royal family typically has a marketing plan for the next seventy-five years.’

‘In any case, it turns out that if you fund enough scientific studies—and the owners of POM have not only funded over fifty-five of them, but they’ve also donated over $34 million in research support to scientists and universities all over the world—you can find something redeeming in just about any product under the sun.’

‘The results proved beyond any doubt whatsoever that marketers, advertisers, and big businesses have nothing at all compared to the influence we consumers have on one another.’

Wonderbook and On Writing.

‘Instantaneous galaxy-wide travel that entails being eaten by a giant transdimensional bear and reconstituted on the other side—the messy type of teleportation—might work best with a minimum of explanation in detail.’

‘In fiction, we make the same kind of decisions about setting as about character; we never include everything, any more than [that and] we would be exhaustive about a person’s backstory. You are creating a model of a world, putting only certain elements of that model into play. Otherwise, you and your reader would get hopelessly lost in the details.’

‘Revision is hard, repetitive work, but it teaches you about language and narrative at an immersive, nitty-gritty level. It also requires certain optimal conditions, which may vary for every writer. Some commonly held ideas about revision are indeed true. You do need distance from the manuscript, usually achieved by sticking it in a drawer for a couple of weeks after you’ve finished the rough draft. You also may need to change the font or the margins, or, in the case of short stories, have a friend read your work to you—all of this so you can see what you’ve written with fresh eyes.’

‘Faulkner said a smart thing about this: ”Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.” That’s what revising is all about, being better than yourself, and you can never stop trying. Because after you learn to forgive yourself for writing bad prose, you also have to learn that other people won’t. Authors can be merciful, but readers? They’re absolute bastards. They’re out for blood. And if you let them down, they will never, ever forgive you.’

‘This is a short book because most books about writing are filled with bullshit. Fiction writers, present company included, don’t understand very much about what they do—not why it works when it’s good, not why it doesn’t when it’s bad. I figured the shorter the book, the less the bullshit.’

‘In many ways, Eula-Beulah prepared me for literary criticism. After having a two-hundred-pound babysitter fart on your face and yell Pow!, The Village Voice holds few terrors.’

Dune.

‘One cannot see emotion in that glazed stone she calls a face… but she is too frozen.’

Dune, Frank Herbert.

The $12 Million Stuffed Shark by Don Thompson.

‘Dealers and auction house specialists do not claim to be able to identify or define what will become million-dollar contemporary art. They say publicly that prices are whatever someone will pay, and privately that art buying at the most expensive end is often a game played by the super-rich, with publicity and cultural distinction as the prize.’

‘The book looks at the economics and psychology of art, dealers, and auctions. It explores money, lust, and the self-aggrandizement of possession, all important elements of the world of contemporary art.’

‘What do you hope to acquire when you bid at a prestigious evening auction at Sotheby’s? A bundle of things: a painting of course, but hopefully also a new dimension to how people see you. As Robert Lacey described it in his book about Sotheby’s, you are bidding for class, for a validation of your taste.’

‘It was described by New York artist Basquiat as a self-portrait, by a critic as a one-eyed dwarf raising both hands in fury, and by Sotheby’s as a Christ-like figure representing the struggles of the black man in a white society. It would take considerable creativity on the part of a viewer to see any one of these in the mix of acrylic, oilstick, and spray paint that make up the work.’

‘Hirst said that the great advantage of spin paintings is that “It’s impossible to make a bad one.” He claims to have tried, using a broom, to smear the colors as the wheel spun, but the painting still looked good. Each spin painting represents the energy of the random.’

‘Regret is more complex when a couple is involved. The male is always the bidder, but it is the woman who allows the man to bid. This can be seen in their body language; the man turns to the woman for unspoken permission to bid again. Tobias Meyer says that the male cannot bid without the female’s permission “because it is a pseudo-orgasmic experience.“ The auctioneer takes bids from the man, but looks at the woman and directs any comments about regret to her.’

‘Michaela Neumeister, a partner in Phillips de Pury, says: “Whenever I hear about a new art fair starting, it is almost physically painful to me. The art world has become a gypsy circus”.’

‘To ensure that collectors perceive a gallery as important, attendance at the most prestigious fairs is a necessity. It is also necessary in order to keep happy those gallery artists who insist on being featured at the best fairs.’

‘On opening day at London’s Frieze Art Fair, VIPs are allowed in at 2 p.m. and VOPs at 5 p.m., but the VVIPs specially invited by sponsor Deutsche Bank gain entry at 11 a.m. to check out the best work.’

‘Bubble or not, every auction specialist warns of a market correction. The question is how hard the landing will be: whether the bubble will burst like a birthday balloon, or just lose a little air and become flabby, like the discarded balloon a month after the party.’

‘So is contemporary art now a good investment? In the case of inexpensive art, the answer is definitely no. Eighty percent of the art bought from local dealers and local art fairs will never resell for as much as the original purchase price. Never, not a decade later, not ever. Buy inexpensive art if you love it and want to live with it, but not in the hope it will appreciate in value.’

‘If you do want to invest in contemporary art for profit rather than to cut it up or burn it, what are the guidelines? Dealers and auction house specialists agree that information gathering is crucial.’

Karen Wiesner, Bring Your Text to Life

‘This is a short book because most books about writing are filled with bullshit. Fiction writers, present company included, don’t understand very much about what they do—not why it works when it’s good, not why it doesn’t when it’s bad. I figured the shorter the book, the less the bullshit.’

‘As we already mentioned, the writer must have a clear understanding of the characters and of the plot even before starting the work. The same applies to the place of action.’

‘The surroundings are the basis of the literary palette: they give colours to the characters, to the conflict, and to the intricacies of the plot. It is as difficult to construct a story without them as to play a theatre piece without decorations.’

‘The surroundings create a world for the work, unfold the characters’ personalities, clarify the conflict, slow down or speed up the story-telling, build the tension up or down, show the backstories, and create an emotional background. Well-done surroundings infinitely enrich the work. Those which are not done well don’t add anything.’ Mary Beckham, literary critic.

‘The reader needs an opportunity to breathe out. If you want an example, try reading Dan Brown’s novels about Robert Langdon. The story tempo there is absolutely merciless. About the half I usually get so tired that I can’t bring myself to finish reading. By the way, the characters need to breathe out no less than the readers—else the plot gets hopelessly convoluted.’

‘… that comes to my mind is Herbert Wells’ War of the Worlds. The novel was first published in 1890. One might have it hard to think of a more sensational, more explosive topic than the conquest of the Earth by hostile aliens. However, the book starts with a lengthy and fairly boring instroduction (as well as many writers of that time, Wells was fond of deep philosophical ponderings and did not haste to switch to the active part of the plot): …’

‘Were this novel to be written today, we would have got a cool thriller with action elements: with crumblilng mountains, destroyed scyscrapers…’

‘We have to remember that the first page of the book—and in particular, the first 250 words—are crucial. After those the reader either gets into reading or does not. Let me illustrate it: in the extract from Wells’ novel given here we have about 200 words. See how little moving space? Skimming through 250 words any reader (be it a literary agent, an editor in a publishing house, a library director, a bookshop-goer, or any casual buyer who wants to spend time in an intersting and useful way) makes a decision to either flip the page or to close the book forever. The wisest piece of advice I have ever got about a striking start was as follows: imagine the reader taking up the book in a horrible mood. You will never be given a second chance. You have to catch him there. All lengthy rhetorical discussions are at your own risk.’

‘If the author does not answer the most important questions, why lose time and effort on reading? Nothing angers the reader more than a broken plotline. They will feel deceived and could even boycott the next books by this author. One cannot underestimate the wrongs that can be caused to one’s career by an unhappy reader.’

‘Not once have I said—and I won’t be over with repeating it—I always figure out the plot completely before writing a single word. This is my method, and it has not failed me once. Only this way can I be sure that my idea is complete and that the work is worth undertaking. I don’t see any reason in writing (and re-writing countless times) a book that will fail to interest both the readers and the publishers. Why devote oneself to a lost cause? My main job always is to make sure that I have come up with a fairly good plot that is worth getting through.’

‘Professional artists work layer by layer: first they get the canvas ready, then they apply the strokes, getting a uniform texture in which every hue and tone would strengthen the others and make them prominent. Just the same way a literary story needs layers: and even if one of them lacks, the picture won’t appear.’

‘Without working out the key elements the story will be unconvincing, schematic, and plain. But when they are all there, the images get so vivid and believable that it would seem the characters are about to come off the pages and start talking with the reader.’

‘A multi-layered structure gives special depth to the text: the characters receive emotional power and persuasiveness, the plotlines become full of intrigue, and the surroundings bloom in colours.’

‘If you want your text to be alive—learn from the artists. Work in layers. Only then will you text shine with bright colours, and only then will the reader want to enter the world you painted and to go through it together with your characters.’

en.perepelyatnik.com

• English: 1.35 billion
• Mandarin: 1.12 billion
• Hindi: 600 millions
• Spanish: 540 millions
• Arabic: 270 millions
• Bengali: 270 millions
• French: 270 millions
• Russian: 260 millions
• Portuguese: 260 millions
• German: 140 millions

Video: 'Before: Destiny'.

'The Chap' vs 'Sir!': The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club.

‘Get on your bonnet,’ repeated Wardle.

‘Do nothing of the kind,’ said Jingle. ‘Leave the room, Sir—no business here—lady’s free to act as she pleases—more than one-and-twenty.’

‘More than one-and-twenty!’ ejaculated Wardle contemptuously. ‘More than one-and-forty!’

‘I ain’t,’ said the spinster aunt, her indignation getting the better of her determination to faint.

Mr. Snodgrass and Mr. Winkle had each performed a compulsory somerset with remarkable agility, when the first object that met the eyes of the latter as he sat on the ground, staunching with a yellow silk handkerchief the stream of life which issued from his nose, was his venerated leader at some distance off, running after his own hat, which was gambolling playfully away in perspective.

‘So I’ve only this here one little bit of adwice to give you. If ever you gets to up’ards o’ fifty, and feels disposed to go a-marryin’ anybody—no matter who—jist you shut yourself up in your own room, if you’ve got one, and pison yourself off hand. Hangin’s wulgar, so don’t you have nothin’ to say to that. Pison yourself, Samivel, my boy, pison yourself, and you’ll be glad on it arterwards.’

Among the herd (so said the legend) was a pig of grave and solemn countenance, with whom the prince had a fellow-feeling—for he too was wise—a pig of thoughtful and reserved demeanour; an animal superior to his fellows, whose grunt was terrible, and whose bite was sharp. The young prince sighed deeply as he looked upon the countenance of the majestic swine; he thought of his royal father, and his eyes were bedewed with tears.

Here the old gentleman shook his head from side to side, and was seized with a hoarse internal rumbling, accompanied with a violent swelling of the countenance, and a sudden increase in the breadth of all his features; symptoms which alarmed his son not a little.

‘Don’t be frightened, Sammy, don’t be frightened,’ said the old gentleman, when by dint of much struggling, and various convulsive stamps upon the ground, he had recovered his voice. ‘It’s only a kind o’ quiet laugh as I’m a-tryin’ to come, Sammy.’

He stalked gravely to the coach door, pulled off his hat, and held it above his head at arm’s length, cocking his little finger in the air at the same time, as some affected people do, when they take a cup of tea. Then he drew his feet together, and made a low, grave bow, and then put out his left hand. 

‘It only shows how true the old saying is, that a man never knows what he can do till he tries, gentlemen.’

‘The bis’ness, Samivel,’ replied the old gentleman, ‘good-vill, stock, and fixters, vill be sold by private contract; and out o’ the money, two hundred pound, agreeable to a rekvest o’ your mother-in-law’s to me, a little afore she died, vill be invested in your name in—What do you call them things agin?’

‘Wot things?’ inquired Sam.

‘Them things as is always a-goin’ up and down, in the city.’

‘Omnibuses?’ suggested Sam.

‘Nonsense,’ replied Mr. Weller. ‘Them things as is alvays a-fluctooatin’, and gettin’ theirselves inwolved somehow or another vith the national debt, and the chequers bill; and all that.’

‘Oh! the funds,’ said Sam.

‘Ah!’ rejoined Mr. Weller, ‘the funs…’

Video: 'Before: Journey'.

An Ode to executive coaching: ‘Marina Melia’s Method. How to strengthen your strength.’

‘Together with the client, both of his ego come to us at once. The first is developing: it carries a request for change, it’s looking forward to changes, believes in them and is ready to cooperate with the coach. The second ego is resisting: it puts a spoke in the wheels and does everything so that changes do not take place. Each of these two has its own meaning.

The second wants to stay in the comfort zone, simulate the result, say ‘Thank you very much, you’ve helped me a lot’ and to continue to live its own life. And the first ego, among other things, has to overcome resistance. Without resistance, there is no change.

If we dream of something, but at the same time we do not experience anxiety and fears, it means that we dream either of something unattainable, or of something primitive and easily realised. The main test that shows that our dreams lead us to something truly new is resistance.’

‘It was difficult for the client to come into contact with any new person, the client needed a certain distance, invasion into which he perceived as a threat and aggression. Working on communication techniques using the image of a regular guy turned out to be destructive for him. In addition, when interacting with a consultant, he did not allow himself to remain his own self. And this man is amazingly smart, creative and witty. He didn’t need any training. It was important for him to understand himself, realise his own personality and rely on his strong qualities."

‘For a coach, personal interest and a keen response are important, otherwise he risks committing the most serious crime against the client—to show indifference. The words of Joseph Brodsky come to mind: And among these crimes (against literature—M. M.), the most serious are not censorship restrictions and not burning books. There is a more serious crime—neglect of books, not reading them."

‘A consultant who is terrified of making a mistake, does not try, does not experiment, does not create. He stops thinking, only painfully tries to remembers what’s the right way. Fear slows down the creative process, shackles imagination and initiative, generates cowardice of thought. Fear of stumbling, painful perfectionism lead to a kind of consultative neurosis. The fear of making a mistake is more dangerous than the mistake itself and costs much more, because avoiding failure does not lead to achieving the goal. If the consultant does not have the courage to act, he misses the opportunity to make a choice in favour of growth.

When you expect to move forward with minimal losses, you should understand that the gains will be also minimal.’ 

‘Based on Viktor Frankl’s ideas that existing means being different, we can say that being an individual means being different from others. At the same time, it is dangerous to be different: a bright personality causes misunderstanding of others, irritation, and sometimes hostility. But if we want to succeed in the profession, we need to take risks and consciously build our own unique image.’

‘Never give in—never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.’

Video: 'Before: Weather'.

1984, George Orwell: Notes on the Thoughts.

Video: 'Before: The Moon'.

Video: 'Before: Elections'.

Reading (various).

(1) Aristotle, Poetica.

A word is «lengthened» or «curtailed», the former when use is made of a longer vowel than usual or a syllable inserted, and the latter when part of the word is curtailed. An example of a lengthened word is πόληος for πολέως and Πηληιάδεω for Πηλείδου; and of a curtailed word κρι̂ and δω̂, and e.g. μία γίνεται ἀμφοτέρων ὄψ. 

A word is «altered» when the poet coins part of the word and leaves the rest unchanged, e.g. δεξιτερὸν κατὰ μαζόν instead of δεξιόν.

The chorus too must be regarded as one of the actors. It must be part of the whole and share in the action, not as in Euripides but as in Sophocles. In the others the choral odes have no more to do with the plot than with any other tragedy. And so they sing interludes, a practice begun by Agathon. And yet to sing interludes is quite as bad as transferring a whole speech or scene from one play to another.

For, if their natural powers are equal, those who are actually in the emotions are the most convincing; he who is agitated blusters and the angry man rages with the maximum of conviction. And that is why poetry needs either a sympathetic nature or a madman, the former being impressionable and the latter inspired.

It is clear, then, from what we have said that the poet must be a «maker» not of verses but of stories, since he is a poet in virtue of his «representation», and what he represents is action. Even supposing he represents what has actually happened, he is none the less a poet, for there is nothing to prevent some actual occurrences being the sort of thing that would probably or inevitably happen, and it is in virtue of that that he is their «maker».

(2) Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea, and Stories.

'But man is not made for defeat,’ he said. ‘A man can be destroyed but not defeated.’

If I were towing him behind there would be no question. Nor if the fish were in the skiff, with all dignity gone, there would be no question either.But they were sailing together lashed side by side and the old man thought, let him bring me in if it pleases him. I am only better than him through trickery and he meant me no harm.

As he watched the bird dipped again slanting his wings for the dive and then swinging them wildly and ineffectually as he followed the flying fish.

The old man could see the slight bulge in the water that the big dolphin raised as they followed the escaping fish.

The dolphin were cutting through the water below the flight of the fish and would be in the water, driving at speed, when the fish dropped.

That was the weakness of Joyce. Daedalus in Ulysses was Joyce himself, so he was terrible. Joyce was so damn romantic and intellectual about him. He’d made Bloom up, Bloom was wonderful. He’d made Mrs. Bloom up. She was the greatest in the world. That was the way with Mac. Mac worked too close to life. You had to digest life and then create your own people. Mac had stuff, though.

(3) Katie Marie (KM) Weiland, Architecture of the plot. How to Create a Memorable Story.

So what’s the reason for this seemingly arbitrary placement of the first plot point? Why the 25% mark and not the 10% or 40%? ... If you’ve ever watched or read a poorly plotted story that skipped or postponed the first plot point, you probably instinctively sensed the story was dragging. Likely, you grew bored and got up to do something else without finishing the story. ... The first major plot point is one of the most exciting moments in any story. Milk yours for all it’s worth! ... This one in particular was timely, as I am at around the 25% mark in my book and was feeling out how to pace my major plot shift. What really struck me was how you emphasized this plot point as a personal turning point at which the main character can react strongly and irretrievably.

The first plot point marks the finish of the first act, and the character’s reaction to it marks the beginning of the second. In a sense, the first plot point is the climax of the first act, and, as such, it should be placed approximately around the 20-25% mark.

Stories are a series of scenes. Some of those scenes are expected, some of them are even purposefully repetitious for the sake of emphasis. But some scenes change everything. These game changers are the plot points. They introduce significant elements and events that alter the subsequent course of the story. Your story can have any number of plot points, some relatively minor, some shockingly huge. Plot points are what keep your story moving forward. They mix things up, keep the conflict fresh, and propel your character far away from any possibility of stagnancy.

My stories almost always have a character at the origin. Some interesting person knocks on the door of my imagination, I open it, and it's like I'm blown away by the wind (sometimes it's a light breeze, sometimes it's a storm). Familiar feeling, right? We are charmed, conquered, curious, obsessed. It's very similar to falling in love.

On the night that he set to be his last night among the living, Dr. Ben Givens had no dreams. His sleep was restless, ghosts came into it, guarding portals to the world of dreams, incessantly muttering about the real world . 

East of the Mountains, David Guterson (Reverse translation from Russian).

But if we go a little further – for example, take the words of William Gibson ‘The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.’—then we will notice not only some poetry, but also the tone of the text, as well as the question ‘Why?’, which will make readers continue reading.

Video: 'Before: Interview'.

Video: 'Before: The Red Button'.

On Writing: to be or not to be?

Video: 'Before: Taxi'.

‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’: what’s that got to do with minorities and Goebbels?

Actual life was chaos, but there was something terribly logical in the imagination. It was the imagination that set remorse to dog the feet of sin.
It was the imagination that made each crime bear its misshapen brood. In the common world of fact the wicked were not punished, nor the good rewarded. Success was given to the strong, failure thrust upon the weak. That was all.

One should absorb the colour of life, but one should never remember its details. Details are always vulgar.
It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.

You know I am not a champion of marriage. The real drawback to marriage is that it makes one unselfish. And unselfish people are colourless. They lack individuality. Still, there are certain temperaments that marriage makes more complex.
Thin-lipped wisdom spoke at her from the worn chair, hinted at prudence, quoted from that book of cowardice whose author apes the name of common sense.

The only artists I have ever known, who are personally delightful, are bad artists.
Good artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are. A great poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of all creatures.
But inferior poets are absolutely fascinating. The worse their rhymes are, the more picturesque they look. The mere fact of having published a book of second-rate sonnets makes a man quite irresistible.

Women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals.
‘Harry, how can you?’
‘My dear Dorian, it is quite true. I am analysing women at the present, so I ought to know. The subject is not so abstruse as I thought it was. I find that, ultimately, there are only two kinds of women, the plain and the coloured. The plain women are very useful. If you want to gain a reputation for respectability, you have merely to take them down to supper. The other women are very charming. They commit one mistake, however. They paint in order to try and look young. Our grandmothers painted in order to try and talk brilliantly. Rouge and esprit used to go together.’

She was a curious woman, whose dresses always looked as if they had been designed in a rage and put on in a tempest.

Live! Live the wonderful life that is in you! Let nothing be lost upon you. Be always searching for new sensations. Be afraid of nothing….A new Hedonism—that is what our century wants. You might be its visible symbol.

The aim of life is self-development. To realise one's nature perfectly—that is what each of us is here for. People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to one's self. Of course they are charitable. They feed the hungry, and clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked. Courage has gone out of our race. Perhaps we never really had it. The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is the secret of religion—these are the two things that govern us.

Intellect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face. The moment one sits down to think, one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or something horrid. Look at the successful men in any of the learned professions. How perfectly hideous they are!

It is better not to be different from one's fellows. The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world.

A large scale Berlin Olympics of 1936, organized by Goebbels with great generosity, became a demonstration of the strength of the German spirit, became a model of the success of this propaganda.

‘A lie told a hundred times becomes the truth,’ Goebbels deduced such a formula, broadcasting lies and launching disinformation to the masses on purpose and in huge quantities. The denigration of political opponents of the NSDAP, if there were any left in the Third Reich, and the popularization of anti-Semitism were in the focus.

I was lying on my back, without a thought, her head on my shoulder. The darkness filling the room was becoming populated. I could hear steps. The walls were disappearing. Something was towering over me, bigger and bigger, endless. I was penetrated through and through, embraced without being touched; I froze still in the darkness, feeling its acute transparency that was displacing the air. I could hear a heart very far away. I focused my whole attention, all the strength I had left, on expecting death throes. They didn’t come. I just kept shrinking, while the unseen sky, the unseen horizons, the emptiness, devoid of shapes, clouds, stars, drawing back and swelling, was making me its center.

I had switched the loudspeaker off right after takeoff, and I lacked the courage to turn it back on. I would have done virtually anything not to have to hear again that terrible voice, which carried no vestige of anything human. This much I could say — all appearances had been smashed, and from under the appearance of Harey’s face another, truer face had begun to show, compared to which the alternative of madness was truly becoming a liberation.

Carnegie ‘the Blogger’: The Keys to the House of Cards.

Happiness is wanting what you get.

If you want to develop courage, do the thing you fear and keep on doing it until you have a record of successful experiences behind you. That is the quickest and surest way ever yet discovered to conquer fear. You can conquer almost any fear if you will only make up your mind to do so. For remember, fear doesn't exist anywhere except in the mind.

If you are not too well versed in the subject of discussion, ask questions. People like to share information on a topic that is interesting to them. If you don't know what to say at all, say compliments.

The basis of successful sales is sincerity, and there is nothing more fatal than blatant flattery.

Let me repeat: in a business environment, the ability to make friends and influence people is six times more important than the most outstanding knowledge.

I have come to the conclusion that there is only one way under high heaven to get the best of an argument – and that is to avoid it. Avoid it as you would avoid rattlesnakes and earthquakes.

King + Britney = ?

‘Hollister shrugged and smiled, revealing teeth Tim could have done without viewing before lunch.’

‘When the cartoon was over and Wile E. Coyote had once more been vanquished, a guy in a suit came on the screen. He had a microphone in his hand. Kalisha thought he was a businessman, and maybe he was, sort of, but that wasn’t his main claim to fame. He was really a preacherman, because when the camera drew back you could see a big old cross behind him outlined in red neon.’

The Book: Is this the one?

‘Indeed, what constitutes life? Day after day, we put up the brave struggle to play our role in this phantom comedy. We are good primates, so we spend most of our time maintaining and defending our territory, so that it will protect and gratify us; climbing—or trying not to slide down—the tribe’s hierarchical ladder, and fornicating in every manner imaginable—even mere phantasms—as much for the pleasure of it as for the promised offspring.’

‘This is eminently true of many happy moments in life. Freed from the demands of decision and intention, adrift on some inner sea, we observe our various movements as if they belonged to someone else, and yet we admire their involuntary excellence.’

‘So, we mustn’t forget any of this, absolutely not. We have to live with the certainty that we’ll get old and that it won’t look nice or be good or feel happy. And tell ourselves that it’s now that matters: to build something, now, at any price, using all our strength. Always remember that there’s a retirement home waiting somewhere and so we have to surpass ourselves every day, make every day undying.’

‘Living, eating, reproducing, fulfilling the task for which we were born, and dying: it has no meaning, true, but that’s the way things are. People are so arrogant, thinking they can coerce nature, escape their destiny of little biological things . . . and yet they remain so blind to the cruelty or violence of their own way of living, loving, reproducing and making war on their fellow human beings . . .
Personally I think there is only one thing to do: find the task we have been placed on this earth to do, and accomplish it as best we can, with all our strength, without making things complicated or thinking there’s anything divine about our animal nature. This is the only way we will ever feel that we have been doing something constructive when death comes to get us. Freedom, choice, will, and so on? Chimeras. We think we can make honey without sharing in the fate of bees, but we are in truth nothing but poor bees, destined to accomplish our task and then die.’

‘What is the purpose of intelligence if it is not to serve others? And I’m not referring to the false servitude that high-ranking state-employed flunkeys exhibit so proudly, as if it were a badge of virtue: the façade of humility they wear is nothing more than vanity and disdain.’