So many dead
writers I wish I could
have been – Shakespeare
of course, and Dickens of course,
Keats, Austen, Wodehouse,
Conan Doyle, Powell, Eliot, Eliot,
Grossmith (both), Proust (I guess),
Carroll, Orwell and
Pratchett – except
and it is a big except,
they are all dead
and me, I’d
rather be alive
When you look back
on your long life
it is as if every detail,
every moment, was
written on a great scroll,
and then put
through a shredder, so
that you are reduced to
picking up thin strips
of paper, each with a
phrase, a headline,
an image, unconnected
to anything else.
Good luck putting
the pieces together.
Juliet needed
sign saying “I ATE’NT DEAD”
to save confusion
Yossarian (Joseph Heller Catch-22)
“He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt”
“From now on I’m thinking only of me.”
Major Danby replied indulgently with a superior smile: “But, Yossarian, suppose everyone felt that way.”
“Then,” said Yossarian, “I’d certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way, wouldn’t I?”
“I’m not running away from my responsibilities. I’m running to them. There’s nothing negative about running away to save my life.”
Rincewind (Terry Pratchett Interesting Times)
“‘But there are causes worth dying for’ said Butterfly
‘No, there aren’t. Because you’ve only got one life but you can pick up another five causes on any street corner!’
‘Good grief, how can you live with a philosophy like that?’
Rincewind took a deep breath.
‘Continuously!'”
“‘ Should we not resist them with every drop of our life’s blood?’ said Butterfly.
Rincewind looked blank ‘No. Run away’.
‘Ah, yes’ said Twoflower. ‘And live to fight another day. That is an Ankh-Morpork saying.’
Rincewind had always assumed that the purpose of running away was to live to run away another day.”
Readers surprised by my post “Books do furnish a (hospital) room” where I list Shakespeare, Dickens, Conan Doyle, Wodehouse and Pratchett, as authors to take with me for an extended hospital stay, are obviously unfamiliar with Terry Pratchett.
Pratchett is an author who can write thoughts like this – “No one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away, until the clock he wound up winds down, until the wine she made has finished its ferment, until the crop they planted is harvested. The span of someone’s life, they say, is only the core of their actual existence.”
He is an author of books in which almost every sentence jumps up, hits you on the head, and demands to be read a second time, and a third, and …….
He belongs in the company of the other four authors, and me, and you.
How can Pratchett and
Adams be dead and such bad
people be alive?
Authors to accompany you on a long hospital visit: Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle, PG Wodehouse, William Shakespeare, Terry Pratchett.
nomdeplume 