Sunday, June 7th, 2009
“One is in a hurry to leave, but one’s visitor keeps chattering away. If it is someone of no importance, one can get rid of him by saying, “You must tell me all about it next time”; but, should it be the sort of visitor whose presence commands one’s best behaviour, the situation is hateful indeed.
One finds that a hair has got caught in the stone which one is rubbing one’s inkstick, or again that gravel is lodged in the inkstick, making a nasty, grating sound.
…One is just about to be told some interesting piece of news when a baby starts crying.
…One has gone to bed and is about to doze off when a mosquito appears, announcing himself in a reedy voice. One can actually feel the wind made by his wings and, slight though it is, one finds it hateful in the extreme.”
from “Hateful Things” by Sei Shonagon
Sei Shonagon
Tags: Essayists, Essays, Memorable Lines
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Monday, June 1st, 2009
He always feels hot. I always feel cold. In the summer when it really is hot he does nothing but complain about how hot he feels. He is irritated if he sees me put a jumper on in the evening.
He speaks several languages well; I do not speak any well. He manages – in his own way – to speak even the languages that he doesn’t know.
He has an excellent sense of direction. I have none at all. After one day in a foreign city he can move about in it as thoughtlessly as a butterfly. I get lost in my own city; I have to ask directions so that I can get back home again. He hates asking directions; when we go by car to a town we don’t know he doesn’t want to ask directions and tells me to look at the map. I don’t know how to read maps and I get confused by all the little red circles and he loses his temper.
Natalia Ginzburg, from “He and I,” an essay about marriage.
Natalia Ginzburg
Natalia Ginzburg (1916-1991) – essayist, novelist, activist. Of her writing, she said:
“When I write something I usually think it is very important and that I am a very fine writer. I think this happens to everyone. But there is one corner of my mind in which I know very well what I am, which is a small, a very small writer. I swear I know it. But that doesn’t matter much to me. Only, I don’t want to think about names: I can see that if I am asked ‘a small writer like who?’ it would sadden me to think of the names of other small writers. I prefer to think that no one has ever been like me; however small, however much a mosquito or a flea of a writer I may be. The important thing is to be convinced that this really is your vocation, your profession, something you will do all your life.”
Tags: Essayists, Essays, Memorable Lines
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