Reading List

Sonny inherited the utter sense of conviction that motivated his honorable grandfather, who I am sure was insufferable, as most men of utter conviction are.

Ever the industrious student, I had read the screenplay in a few hours and then reread and written notes for several more hours, all under the misguided idea my work mattered.

…I had no doubt that in the Auteur's egomaniacal imagination he meant that his work of art, now, was more important than the three or four or six million dead who composed the real meaning of the war. They cannot represent themselves; they must be represented.

…the whisper of a dewy lover saying the most seductive words in our language, anh oi

You must claim America, she said. America will not give itself to you. If you do not claim America, if America is not in your heart, America will throw you into a concentration camp or a reservation or a plantation. And then, if you have not claimed America, where will you go?

Sometimes, a person reaches a point in their life when it becomes absolutely essential to get the fuck out of the city.

I am already aware of that, says Mejal. Aren’t we all?

We are aware of many things, instinctively, says Ona quietly, but to have them articulated in a certain narrative way is pleasing and fun.

— Our freedom and safety are the ultimate goals, and it is men who prevent us from achieving those goals.

But not all men, says Mejal.

Ona clarifies: Perhaps not men, per se, but a pernicious ideology that has been allowed to take hold of men’s hearts and minds.

I wanted to say, your letter lives inside me in the most literal way possible, but didn’t—

Compassion is an unstable emotion. It needs to be translated into action, or it withers. The question is what to do with the feelings that have been aroused, the knowledge that has been communicated.

I think this is an applicable question to any number of things—I now know about x injustice, so what will I do? It is not enough to have the knowledge. This was originally published in 2001 and updated in 2004; there is probably something new to be said about the scale of how news spreads today.