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Trevanian QUOTES

Trevanian QUOTES

1 " Confession is good for the soul, it empties the spirit making more room for sin. "

― Trevanian , Shibumi

2 " Irony is Fate's most common figure of speech. "

― Trevanian , Shibumi

3 " And he recalled the ancient adage: Who must do the harsh things? He who can. "

― Trevanian , Shibumi

4 " It was not their irritating assumption of equality that annoyed Nicholai so much as their cultural confusions. The Americans seemed to confuse standard of living with quality of life, equal opportunity with institutionalized mediocrity, bravery with courage, machismo with manhood, liberty with freedom, wordiness with articulation, fun with pleasure - in short, all of the misconceptions common to those who assume that justice implies equality for all, rather than equality for equals. "

― Trevanian , Shibumi

5 " Ripe for romance? Is that not only the self-conscious and sensitive young man's way of saying he was heavy with passion? Is not, perhaps, romance only the fiction by means of which the tender-minded negotiate their lust? "

― Trevanian , The Summer of Katya

6 " It's not Americans I find annoying; it's Americanism: a social disease of the postindustrial world that must inevitably infect each of the mercantile nations in turn, and is called 'American' only because your nation is the most advanced case of the malady, much as one speaks of Spanish flu, or Japanese Type-B encephalitis. It's symptoms are a loss of work ethic, a shrinking of inner resources, and a constant need for external stimulation, followed by spiritual decay and moral narcosis. You can recognize the victim by his constant efforts to get in touch with himself, to believe his spiritual feebleness is an interesting psychological warp, to construe his fleeing from responsibility as evidence that he and his life are uniquely open to new experiences. In the later stages, the sufferer is reduced to seeking that most trivial of human activities: fun. "

― Trevanian , Shibumi

7 " Your scorn for mediocrity blinds you to its vast primitive power. You stand in the glare of your own brilliance, unable to see into the dim corners of the room, to dilate your eyes and see the potential dangers of the mass, the wad of humanity. Even as I tell you this, dear student, you cannot quite believe that lesser men, in whatever numbers, can really defeat you. But we are in the age of the mediocre man. He is dull, colorless, boring — but inevitably victorious. The amoeba outlives the tiger because it divides and continues in its immortal monotony. The masses are the final tyrants. See how, in the arts, Kabuki wanes and withers while popular novels of violence and mindless action swamp the mind of the mass reader. And even in that timid genre, no author dares to produce a genuinely superior man as his hero, for in his rage of shame the mass man will send his yojimbo, the critic, to defend him. The roar of the plodders is inarticulate, but deafening. They have no brain, but they have a thousand arms to grasp and clutch at you, drag you down. "

― Trevanian , Shibumi

8 " Hana: What on Earth is a 'barbeque'? Hel: A primitive tribal ritual featuring paper plates, elbows, flying insects, encrusted meat, hush puppies, and beer. Hana: I daren't ask what a 'hush puppy' is. Hel: Don't. "

― Trevanian , Shibumi

9 " You can gain experience, if you are careful to avoid empty redundancy. Do not fall into the error of the artisan who boasts of twenty years experience in craft while in fact he has had only one year of experience–twenty times. And never resent the advantage of experience your elders have. Recall that they have paid for this experience in the coin of life, and have emptied a purse that cannot be refilled. "

― Trevanian , Shibumi

10 " Generalization is flawed thinking only when applied to individuals. It is the most accurate way to describe the mass, the Wad. And yours is a democracy, a dictatorship of the Wad. "

― Trevanian , Shibumi

11 " Go is to Western chess what philosophy is to double-entry accounting. "

― Trevanian , Shibumi

12 " We all desire to be understood, but no one enjoys being obvious. "

― Trevanian , The Summer of Katya

13 " In seeming contradiction of physical laws, time is heavy only when it is empty. "

― Trevanian , Shibumi

14 " It is revealing of the American culture that its prototypic hero is the cowboy: an uneducated, boorish, Victorian migrant agricultural worker. "

― Trevanian , Shibumi

15 " İtiraf ruha iyi gelir, Montjean. Ruhu boşaltır, yeni günahlar için yer hazırlar. "

― Trevanian , The Summer of Katya

16 " The rope connecting two men on a mountain is more than nylon protection; it is an organic thing that transmits subtle messages of intent and disposition from man to man; it is an extension of the tactile senses, a psychological bond, a wire along which currents of communication flow. "

― Trevanian , The Eiger Sanction (Jonathan Hemlock, #1)

17 " Niceness is an overrated quality. Being nice is how a man pays his way into a party if he hasn't the guts to be tough or the class to be brilliant. "

― Trevanian , The Eiger Sanction (Jonathan Hemlock, #1)

18 " As you know, shibumi has to do with great refinement underlying commonplace appearances. It is a statement so correct that it does not have to be bold, so poignant it does not have to be pretty, so true it does not have to be real. Shibumi is understanding, rather than knowledge. Eloquent silence. In demeanor, it is modesty without pudency. In art, where the spirit of shibumi takes the form of sabi, it is elegant simplicity, articulate brevity. In philosophy, where shibumi emerges as wabi, it is spiritual tranquility that is not passive; it is being without the angst of becoming. "

― Trevanian , Shibumi

19 " Ben geleceği hep yığınlar halinde 'bugün' olmayı bekleyen yarınlardan oluşmuş diye görürüm. "

― Trevanian , The Summer of Katya

20 " Dedikodu bizim kadınlarımıza günahın tadını çıkarma olanağı verir. Kendi işlemeyecekleri, işleyemeyecekleri günahlar. Çünkü onları cesaretsizlikleri, hayal güçlerinin eksikliği ve fırsatsızlık engelliyor. Biz de bu eksikliklere namus diyoruz. "

― Trevanian , The Summer of Katya