this and that

[Guest arabaliozian]

IT IS AN IMPOSSIBLE TASK to civilize the offspring of uncivilized parents./ARMENIANS WORSHIP live benefactors and dead poets./THE TWO MOST DANGEROUS enemies of learning: a large ego and a big mouth./THE AMBITION OF EVERY Armenian sardine is to be a Turkish shark./SOMETIMES THE BEST REVENGE is to condemn your enemy to live with himself for the rest of his life./IF I CAN’T SWAY THEM, I can at least make them sweat./THE BRAIN MAY compromise but the gut, never!/A BETTER UNDERSTANDING of the past means fewer surprises in the future.ARE WE REALLY SMART? / If we are, why is it that we are in such a mess? Two possible answers: Being smart isn’t enough. Or maybe we are not as smart as we think we are. Because when two self-assessed smart people disagree it may be because they are both wrong or one of them is an obstinate, arrogant fool who thinks he is endowed with a superior brain./MY AMBITION / Being infallible? Certainly not. Being readable? Maybe…/SUCCESS / To be a success in literature you must be a source of income to someone else. In its millennial history, Armenian literature has not been a source of income to anyone. A reliable and unfailing source of disappointment, disease, and early death, yes!/PATRIOTISM / I don’t trust the patriotism and compassion of bloodsuckers, capitalists, propagandists, and in general anyone with a full belly. When I speak, I speak for the hungry, the unemployed, the insulted and injured, the exploited and the poor, the disoriented, the alienated, the assimilated, and the massacred.ARMENIAN APHORISMS AND SAYINGS*********************************************By Avedik IssahakianI fell, I got upI lost and I found...Of all certain thingsThe most certain is doubt.**Have pity on all,But love none,Don't tempt men,live a humble life;There is no other pathto a happy life.**We are like feathersFortune a strong windThat blows and snatchesat its whim.**To be on the safe sideAvoid a dog's front endAnd a mule's rear end.**Teaching consists in opening the mind;The mouth will open by itself.(translated by a.b.)THERE IS A FAMILIAR TYPE of Armenian who has no interest in what anyone else may have to contribute to the debate. Dialogue is a foreign concept to him. In his system, there is only one valid view and he is its sole spokesman.One view. One spokesman. One fuehrer. Heil Hitler!To those of my readers eager to inform me I am myself a heil-hitler type, I can only say: "With one important difference: I am aware of it, and whenever I forget it, I can always rely on readers like you to remind me, for which many thanks."/VIVE LA DIFFERENCE / When I was a little boy growing up in a crowded ghetto, I loved reading about distant exotic places. Later, when I discovered literature, I enjoyed most of all reading writers with whom I shared nothing in common. To this day, I love reading about experiences and ideas outside my narrow orbit.Which is why I cannot understand those of my readers who wish to re-create me in their own image, and I have every reason to suspect, on the day they succeed, they will give up reading me. Because, if you think about it, who wants to talk to his own shadow or eat regurgitated food?/CROCODILES AND EARTHWORMS / People who like dishing it out can’t take it. They attack with the confidence and daring of crocodiles but they squash like earthworms when stepped on.