Favourite footnotes: 13

Who is Mr. Dash, the philsopher? Really I have forgot. Not through any fault of my own, but on the motion of some absurd coward having a voice potential at the press, all the names were struck out behind my back in the first edition of the book, thirty-five years ago. I was not consulted, and did not discover the absurd blanks until months afterwards, when I was taunted with them very reasonably by a caustic reviewer.

- Thomas De Quincey, Confessions of an English Opium-Eater

Jane Austen, filth-merchant

If he had intended to give her one, he would have told her so.

- Jane Austen, Emma

Alas...

However wide-ranging any person's formative reading may be, there will always be an enormous number of fundamental works that one has not read.

- Italo Calvino, Why Read the Classics?*

--
* which I have not read. This is from the Amazon Look Inside! facility.

InDefinition - 84

Wetherspoonerism, n. accidental transposition of initial sounds or letters, drink having been taken. E.g.

Late home for supper,
he mustn't seem drunk.
'The pob cluck,' he begins,
And knows he is sunk.

- Wendy Cope, 'Timekeeping'

Thug life

"Your words are friendly, and I drink them in as grateful sherbet."

- Philip Meadows Taylor, Confessions of a Thug

Delicacy

A number of tiny errors, typographic and even grammatical, had crept into Nabokov’s text. I had the copy set twice in print, my version and his, and sent them both by overnight express. He wired back, “your version perfect”.

- Edmund White, in the TLS

Dostoevsky v pornography (Afghanistan edition)

Porn is prevalent, more prevalent than Dostoevsky.

- Dan Clements, in The Times

Frankly...

'The publisher of this book wishes me to vouch for the writer of this book who is a friend of mine in order to utilise whatever celebrity kudos the writer of this quote, i.e. me, has left in order to advance the sales of this book. That has been duly done now in the form of this quote. I am sure the book is very good though I cannot remember what it is called or whether I have read it. I've read lots of his stuff and it;s always good and I am in no way biased.' 

- Thom Yorke, middle-aged father of two

[on Stanley Donwood's Humor]

The nostrils of the poet

The cinnamon has, unfortunately, no smell at all, but to the nostrils of the poet.

- The Edinburgh Review, or Critical Journal, on Robert Percival's An Account of the Island of Ceylon (etc.)

(Audio)Books I've actually (re-)finished lately: 123

To be alive as Chaucer was not the same as to be alive as Milton - or Tennyson, or Eliot, or Plath.

- Peter Whitfield

Books I've actually finished lately: 119

Conversation with my mother is like everyone's conversation with their mothers, but with a twist.
     'How come you never tell me what you're up to, but you reveal your innermost thoughts and most shameful anecdotes to everyone who reads the New Statesman?'
     'Well, if you match their rates we may be able to come to some arrangement...'

- Nicholas Lezard

Books I've actually finished lately:118

1) Epic poetry presupposes a professional tradition. 

2) 'They put him on the carved bed, and stood singers beside him,' [the same word is used for professional poets]... 

3) Everyone can wail in every family, but not everyone can make and sing the dirge.

- Peter Levi

Books I've actually finished lately: 117

Without my shadow I don't know how the other half feels.

- Nick Cave

(Jury's still out on the audio sample. Cave is reading it himself...)

Further thoughts on style

To imitate another man's style is like wearing a mask, which, be it never so fine, is not long in arousing disgust and abhorrence, because it is lifeless; so that even the ugliest living face is better.

- Arthur Schopenhauer, The Art of Literature

The truth about style (and vice versa)

If, being a coward, I take on a heroic tone, I am committing a stylistic mistake.

- Witold Gombrowicz (transl. Lillian Vallee), 'Against Poets'

Books I've actually finished lately: 115

I will have such difficulty in becoming English again.

- TE Lawrence, letter to his mother, 29/08/1909

The not-so-good old days

With the increasing informality of ritual under the reforms of Edward VI came scope for new sources of texts, especially psalms either entire or in part - though not yet the personal selection of verses which later became common (and caused the unfortunate sixteenth-century Flemish composer Laurent de Voz to be hanged for a motet containing a suggestive choice of psalm texts).

- Nicolas Robertson, sleeve notes to Sacred Choral Music by William Mundy (The Sixteen, dir. Harry Christophers

The good old days

Josquin was able to set the psalm 'Memor esti verbi servo tuo' as a reminder to the French king that his salary was due.

- Nicolas Robertson, sleeve notes to Sacred Choral Music by William Mundy (The Sixteen, dir. Harry Christophers

'This interview was conducted... sitting on the ground in the hotel car park...'

Q. What is the contemporary literary scene like...? 

A. Well, the books are not getting sold. There is no excitement. People are quite despondent, and they don’t know where the work is going. They want to write—actually, a lot of people want to write. But where is this work going to go? Our young writers have trouble getting published by the publishing houses that we have... and so they resort to self-publishing.... But it’s too expensive for the market. There is also the fact that 50 percent of the population is illiterate. They can speak... but they cannot read or write.... And there is a big issue with egos. The old writers are not just the gatekeepers; they have entered and they have shut the gate firmly behind them so no one else can enter.... Another big problem is that when books are launched, it's in a gentrified area, so nobody else knows what is happening.

- Aaron Bady interviews Edwige-Renée DRO, in The New Inquiry

(Wait - what? They were talking about the Ivory Coast...?! So sorry. Unexpurgated version here.)

Books I've actually finished lately:113

The description [in Minima Moralia] of a short-order cook in a place like Teddy’s Cafe, as ‘a juggler with fried-eggs’ is Nabokovian, though in addition to seeing the cook as a juggler Nabokov would probably have put a spin on the eggs too. I thought of this as I made a note in my notebook...

- Geoff Dyer