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[Guest arabaliozian]

ON REREADINGAnything that is worth reading is also worth rereading, if not once every five years than at least once every thirty years. One rereads to understand better or to recapture an early experience. Some of the writers I have been rereading: Chekhov, Thomas Mann, Jules Renard, Rex Stout, Somerset Maugham (the essays)..WOMEN IAccording to Renard women are "animals without fur but with a very valuable skin.".WOMEN IITheir strength is an extension of our weakness..FACT / FICTIONIf fiction is not fact with its clothes removed it can't be worth reading..2+2If a fool were to say 2 plus 2 makes 5, he would be ignored. But if the same fool were to say the Armenian Genocide is a lie, he would create a firestorm of controversy. Figure that one out if you can..MORE FROM JULES RENARD"He always says yes and he always does no."*"How hard it is being good! I hope I will never make it."*"Tears on a cold man’s face: large drops of rain on a wall."*"The charity of a hypocrite: he gives ten cents’ worth to receive twenty dollars’ worth of gratitude.".ACTION VERSUS CONTEMPLATIONSometimes I am accused of doing nothing – as if action were better than contemplation. But to survive in an environment where no one gives a #### whether you are dead or alive requires a considerable amount of concentrated action. You don't believe me? Ask an Armenian writer.FACTSNo one will ever know all the facts, let alone the facts behind the facts..HORROR STORIESThe scariest books in the world are medical dictionaries and their description of symptoms most of which you may have had or you suspect to have or you are about to have..THE WHEELThere are entire civilizations that failed to invent the wheel. And to think that all they had to do is look at the sun or the full moon. But then, every civilization may be said to have missed the obvious or that which ultimately destroyed it..FACTIt took me many years to see that in any given society, including the most civilized and progressive, bus drivers and janitors are in far greater demand than writers..JULES RENARD AGAIN"Work thinks, leisure dreams."*"She has a very naughty way of being good."*"Do we have a destiny? Are we free? What a nuisance not to know. What a nuisance if we knew."*"To begin a poem with the words: ‘Muse, say nothing! Muse, shut up!’"*"A friend is like an overcoat that should be discarded when worn out, otherwise you will be the one that is discarded."*"The most beautiful pages on nature are written in cities."*"A word so nice that you wish it had cheeks so that you could kiss them."FRAUDSIt’s cynical to suspect that most people are frauds. It’s horrible to discover that reality is worse than our worst suspicions..HOMELAND / DIASPORAOne noteworthy difference between the Diaspora and Soviet Armenia: after murdering some of our ablest writers, the Soviets issued their carefully annotated collected works..MORE FROM JULES RENARDSome people deliver eulogies the way others make investments: they hope to collect with interest.*There is a mother-in-law in every woman.*Nations should fear war the way individuals fear death.*The sleep of the just. But the just should not be able to sleep.*The happy man who is also an optimist is an imbecile.*Be tolerant of my intolerance.