Weblog of Quotes and Rants

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There must be a god, because I don't know how things work

- Stephen Colbert

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There's nothing like being persecuted to fortify your beliefs.

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I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.

- Robert McCloskey

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.

- Oscar Wilde

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Equations are the devil's sentences.

- Stephen Colbert

I think Bigfoot is blurry, that's the problem. It's not the photographer's fault. Bigfoot is blurry. And that's extra scary to me, because there's a large, out-of-focus monster roaming the countryside.

- Mitch Hedberg

The depressing thing about tennis is that no matter how good I get, I'll never be as good as a wall.

- Mitch Hedberg

My belt holds my pants up, but the belt loops hold my belt up. I don't really know what's happening down there. Who is the real hero?

- Mitch Hedberg

[In response to other whispering and giggling:]

"Haha, quiet things are funny"

- Bo Burnham

My heart feels like wet toilet paper...It's like not even two ply, it's like one ply, it's like school toilet paper

- Psych

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.

- Arthur Schopenhauer

Patriotism is often an arbitrary veneration of real estate above principles

- George Jean Nathan

Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.

- Ambrose Bierce

Music is essentially useless, as life is.

- George Santayana

I really liked this turn of phrase, from an interesting article on Africa

His face was etched with a kind of wisdom that comes at a price

- Alexandra Fuller

This is what separation of church and state is for:

I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God’s will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.

- Barack Obama

If you are not going to learn from your mistakes, then what is the point of making them?

I am nearing the end of my first two years as postdoc and I think this article brings up some really good points on the current "career structure for scientific research":

Give postdocs a career, not empty promises

Graduate students and post-docs get paid notoriously low. Partly because of this, the system these days favors labs with a few professors/senior scientists, and a lot of post-docs and grad students. But given the low ratio of faculty to trainees, those trainees inevitably will not all find themselves more permanent faculty (or even senior scientist) jobs. This also means that the turnover in many labs is high. I feel like a lot of human resources are being wasted, needing to train new people every 2-5 years.

“To force a highly trained postdoc from research is a terrible waste.”

Unfortunately, convincing the community to change is a huge challenge.

Edit: Another interesting article on what "failure" means in academia: A Ph.D. and a Failure

I'm a big fan of Pandora. I don't have to decide exactly what I want to listen to, just the general genre. I find out about new (to me) artists that I might otherwise never hear.

One complaint I have is the narrowness of some "stations". For one, I feel like I hear a lot of the same artists/songs on any given station. Maybe I just listen to it too much, and need to "add variety", but surely there is more out there? Or maybe pandora just doesn't have the licenses?

My R.E.M. station is great, but why do they think I only want to listen to late 80s/early 90s music? I'm willing to bet that there are newer artists with similar styles. Although, maybe others would complain if they did play outside the band's era. Such is life.

Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.

- Victor Hugo

I shall go
Up and down,
In my gown.
Gorgeously arrayed,
Boned and stayed.
And the softness of my body will be guarded
From embrace
By each button hook and lace

- Amy Lowell (Patterns)

And neither the angels in Heaven above
Nor the demons down under the sea
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

- Edgar Allen Poe (Annabel Lee)

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Saturday morning breakfast cereal (smbc) is a great nerdy comic, and recently posted an excellent Hemingway quote: Hemingway on Literature

And it is true: Selected Letters

I was not aware until now that Hemingway struggled with spelling ("mirricale, or however you spell it, mirricle maybe"), so I'm in good company!

In nature there is no death, only a reshuffling of atoms

- GJ ("Top of the Lake" miniseries)

Actually, I think this is a rephrasing of something said by U.G. Krishnamurti.

Also "Top of the Lake" is an interesting, disturbing, and beautiful miniseries set in New Zealand.  However, unlike other shows/movies (ahem, LOTR), it did not make me want to visit.

I'm partway through The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel by Neil Gaiman and it is great!

“Nobody actually looks like what they really are on the inside,” Lettie tells the boy. “Grown-ups don’t look like grown-ups on the inside either. Outside, they’re big and thoughtless and they always know what they’re doing. Inside, they look just like they always have. Like they did when they were your age. The truth is, there aren’t any grown-ups. Not one, in the whole wide world … Except for Granny, of course.”

- Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane

I highly recommend the audiobook. Gaiman reads it himself and his voice is great.

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I just finished reading (okay, listening to) Rebecca by Daphe du Maurier.

It is an English novel published in 1938.  Mysterious and atmospheric, it presents a tale with a simple plot and complex characters.  Once again, so many problems could have been avoided through better communication.

There is not a lot of action, but the writing and descriptions are enjoyable.  Worth reading.

A couple quotes I enjoyed:

“Happiness is not a possession to be prized, it is a quality of thought, a state of mind.” 

“If only there could be an invention that bottled up a memory, like scent. And it never faded, and it never got stale. And then, when one wanted it, the bottle could be uncorked, and it would be like living the moment all over again.” 

“Men are simpler than you imagine my sweet child. But what goes on in the twisted, tortuous minds of women would baffle anyone.”  

“I wondered how many people there were in the world who suffered, and continued to suffer, because they could not break out from their own web of shyness and reserve, and in their blindness and folly built up a great distorted wall in front of them that hid the truth.” 

I'm not sure entirely how I feel about The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton.  I would put it under the "do read" category, but  I think I missed out on some of the nuances having listened to the story rather than read the book.  Apparently the book has some astrogolgical charts and graphs.  Pretty much all of the astrological references went right past me. The narrator (Mark Meadows) did a fantastic job with his accents and distinguishing the different characters.   

Get the book: The Luminaries  

Get the audio book: The Luminaries (Audible)

The structure was semi apparent, given that each section is half as long as the previous.  The unique structure was most obvious at the end, where part 12 just flew by, matter of factly, making me think maybe something was wrong with the audio book :)

After finishing the book, I decided to read some Audible reviews, to see what other people thought of it.  There was a very mixed selection of "loved it!!!11!!!" and "meh" and "boooring".  I understand how some people could find such a lengthy and repetative book to be boring, but this book made me excited for my daily subway commutes.  So I guess I didn't find it boring.  I found the cast of characters intriguing and the details of the overarching mystery to be compelling.   

 “Love cannot be reduced to a catalogue of reasons why, and a catalogue of reasons cannot be put together into love.” 
― Eleanor Catton The Luminaries

 “For although a man is judged by his actions, by what he has said and done, a man judges himself by what he is willing to do, by what he might have said, or might have done—a judgment that is necessarily hampered, not only by the scope and limits of his imagination, but by the ever-changing measure of his doubt and self-esteem.” 

― Eleanor Catton The Luminaries

From Monday Dec 2nd show, in response to rich people not caring:

Guess who has two thumbs, a lot of cash, and doesn't care that these aren't thumbs [gives middle fingers]

-- Colbert Report

hehehehe