Not Quite Shakespeare

The prudent person thinks twice

2011-10-20T21:24:00.001+01:00

The prudent person thinks twice before he acts. The schizophrenic, four. The insomniac thinks until it's time to act and then he falls asleep. 

To operate is human

2011-10-15T13:56:00.001+01:00

The intervention was routine. But the surgeon's wife had fled with the proctologist that same morning, and he was operating to forget.

The patient awoke the next day with a hard stomach, acute pains and a strange will to slow dance. They took x-rays of him. Then they panicked and called the surgeon on the phone. It didn't take him ten minutes to get there. He had spent the night selling his sorrows to the pigeons on the lawn of the hospital. He looked at the x-rays and his unshaven jaw fell in his chest. He had forgotten an old 45-rpm single inside the patient. "Our music," he groaned. Then he started to cry, his ear glued to the patient's belly.

My analyst said

2011-10-15T13:38:00.001+01:00

My analyst said the space I'm looking for is interior, not exterior. “But how do I get in?,” I asked. Then he showed me the knife.

Do not judge a book by its cover.

2011-10-15T13:34:00.001+01:00

Judge the publisher instead.

At 22, the urgency of the senses;

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at 44, a certain sense of urgency.

A man recapitulated all his life

2011-10-14T15:57:00.001+01:00

A man recapitulated all his life while the stretcher he occupied rolled through the aisles; and he thought he had not lived to the full. The river he hadn’t swum into because he was afraid of water snakes. The girl he never got to kiss because he was disgusted by the mere thought of exchanging saliva. The girlfriends he had not dated because he didn’t want to bathe every day. The woman he never asked in marriage because he wasn’t sure she bathed every day.

Then the inconceivable moment came. The peace of mind, the tunnel, the light oh so bright, the calling of the voices. The stretcher stopped. Hands flew like birds over his motionless body. But he, as always, couldn’t make up his mind; and suffered a near-death experience.

The Restless Mind's Corner

2011-10-14T11:13:00.001+01:00

There's a Sisyphus in every Gillette.

Opinion

2011-10-13T16:06:00.001+01:00

is a gift-wrapped prejudice.

Ancient Greek actors

2011-10-13T12:38:00.001+01:00

used different masks for Comedy and for Tragedy. They did so because the audience wasn't always able to distinguish one from the other.

God knows all

2011-10-12T18:28:00.001+01:00

that has happened in the past, all that is happening in the present and all that will happen in the future. This could account for a certain disinterest.

Poet

2011-10-12T15:48:00.001+01:00

He who does with his tongue more than modesty advises.

An old man

2011-10-10T22:18:00.001+01:00

is a boy with a good excuse.

Eternity

2011-10-10T21:43:00.001+01:00

consists of a circular line in which a bore occupies one of the points of the circumference.

Resentful people

2011-10-10T21:35:00.001+01:00

are models of sailing ships stuck inside bottles.

Thirty pages

2011-10-08T21:24:00.001+01:00

How shall we write so that we are read by no-one? Writing at least thirty pages. More than thirty and we will succumb to the temptation of being read. For one not to be read one must write thirty pages and then – this is crucial – be capable of destroying them.

We are a people of poets

2011-10-03T09:47:00.001+01:00

because we can't afford the paint.

The Restless Minds Corner

2011-10-03T02:28:00.001+01:00

Often it takes a night of insomnia for us to open our eyes.

The Restless Minds Corner

2011-10-02T13:06:00.001+01:00

For the horizontal man, every door is a trapdoor.

Insomnia

2011-09-30T07:40:00.001+01:00

is compulsive living.

The Restless Minds Corner

2011-09-30T06:04:00.001+01:00

Rare birds perch on common places.

Don't buy a palace

2011-09-29T23:53:00.001+01:00

if you think you won't be able to clean it properly.

For the one-eyed man

2011-09-29T23:51:00.001+01:00

every love is at first sight.

Solitude

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requires accompaniment.

The greatest pearls in human comedy

2011-09-27T23:19:00.001+01:00

are produced by people with the sense of humour of an oyster.

The Hamurabi code

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6339

Segismond and Bradamond

2011-09-26T11:47:00.001+01:00

Centuries before Gladstone and Disraeli dreamed with pleasure that they were dipping each other’s hard head into bowls of ponch, the liberal knight Segismond and the conservative Bradamond, their mentors, contended for the crown of a very prosperous small kingdom. It looked like Segismond was winning the day when he threw the idea, later picked up by Gladstone himself, that Liberalism presupposes confidence in the people tempered with prudence, whereas Conservatism feeds itself on distrust in the people tempered with fear. This hearing, Bradamond was filled with alarm and cut off the head of his opponent, who in turn became silent. The judges of the tournament didn’t need much time to declare the cut illegal, and the people of the kingdom, who above all respected justice, would rather crown the lifeless head of the fallen pretender than offer the throne to an immoderate man. The Victorian age came and still the little kingdom prospered. Its inhabitants, it was said, continued to be as just as ever. When some foreigner asked them if they were happy with their king, they answered: Segismond, the Liberal? He doesn’t reign at all.

The Restless Minds Corner

2011-09-24T21:40:00.001+01:00

Certainty: doubt without exit.

The Restless Minds Corner

2011-09-24T14:17:00.001+01:00

The true sceptical is not the one who doubts everything; it is the one who searches for the solution after he has found it.

The Restless Minds Corner

2011-09-22T17:02:00.001+01:00

The Universe is a big book in which everything that was, is and will be is already written—with medical calligraphy.

I have an iron will

2011-09-22T14:07:00.001+01:00

but laziness is rusting it.

The Restless Minds Corner

2011-09-22T13:46:00.001+01:00

A very important person doesn't believe in life after his death.

A very old man in a very bad condition

2011-09-21T10:40:00.001+01:00

A very old man in a very bad condition found the King of France next to a bronze Mercury and engaged in a conversation with him. They sat on the sculpted shells of a little rococo fountain with red fishes and stone tritons and each one told the other the story of his life. The old man spoke about the tremendous hardships he had had to endure in his very long existence; the King, of his extraordinary might. When they had nothing left to say to each other, the old man asked the monarch if he’d be willing to exchange lives with him. The King of France answered: “The devil be deaf, blind and dumb!” And the poor devil became deaf, blind and dumb.

The Restless Minds Corner

2011-09-21T07:16:00.001+01:00

There are four Springs in a year—three of which are in a very bad shape.

The Restless Minds Corner

2011-09-21T00:06:00.001+01:00

Life is like a dinosaur skeleton: there's always some part missing.

An ECG

2011-09-20T22:34:00.001+01:00

is a short story written by the heart.

The Restless Minds Corner

2011-09-20T18:36:00.001+01:00

The difference between a jazz chord and a pop chord: you can use the jazz chord as a password.

The Restless Minds Corner

2011-09-20T09:48:00.001+01:00

Know thyself and thou shalt have a social life.

The Restless Minds Corner

2011-09-20T00:46:00.001+01:00

Dilettante is he who says of Culture, "Well, maybe just a little bit more."

The Restless Minds Corner

2011-09-20T00:42:00.001+01:00

Humour is the only light that doesn't project a shadow.

The Restless Minds Corner

2011-09-19T22:47:00.001+01:00

Insomnia is a free sample of Eternity.

The Restless Minds Corner

2011-09-19T22:28:00.001+01:00

The good thing about the worse moment of our lives is that it only happens once.