Home > Work > The Portable Veblen
1 " Are you committed to having a really strange life?" She laughed. "Probably. What do you mean? "
― Elizabeth Mckenzie , The Portable Veblen
2 " Don't worry about it." "When you're me, there's always something to worry about. Everything goes wrong for me, and you know it. "
3 " According to Adolf Guggenbuhl-Craig, the Swiss analyst and author of Marriage: Dead or Alive, a wedding is more than a party or a legality. It's not less than a boxing ring, two people facing off, acknowledging their separate identities rather than their union, in the company of all the people who lay claim to them. A wedding is the time and place to recognize the full clutch of the past in the negotiation of a shared future. "
4 " She had a lot of practice standing things because she had to stand them, which was a hard habit to break. "
5 " She counted on herself to withstand everything. And yet, who said she had to? What would happen if she broke down now and then? "
6 " I pledge allegiance, to the marketplace, of the United States of America. TM. And to the conglomerates, for which we shill,one nation under Exxon-Mobile/Halliburton/Boeing/Walmart,nonrefundable,with litter and junk mail for all! "
7 " This town is infested with squirrels, have you noticed?" "I'd rather say it's rich with squirrels. "
8 " It's so weird how people like hamsters so much better than squirrels," Veblen added, knowing that hamsters were hindgut fermenters and coprophagists, whereas squirrels were nothing of the sort. "
9 " When you entered the cavern of another language, you could leave certain people behind, for they had no interest in following you in. You could, by way of translation, emerge from the cavern and share your adventures with them. You didn’t have to be an intellectual in a black beret smoking clove cigarettes to be a translator, not at all. You could become one in your blue flannel pajamas, your face smeared with Clearsil. You did. "
10 " By clearly emphasizing all that was lacking in others, by mapping and raising to an art form the catalog of their flaws, Veblen’s mother had inversely punched out a template for an ideal human being, and it was the unspoken assumption that Veblen would aspire to this template with all her might. "
11 " Thorstein Veblen would say people hate squirrels, she called up to him, "because that's the only way to motivate expenditure on them - such as buying traps or guns. It's the same with stirring up patriotic emotionalism, because it justifies expenditures for defense. "
12 " A life could be spent like an apology—to prove you had been worth it. "
13 " Art is despair with dignity. "
14 " HER OWN VISION of the future was of happiness in the air. Something was baking. Children were playing games. There were flowers and substantial trees, and birds were singing in their nests. She was living with someone who was laughing. "
15 " She'd let her eyes water so the view was blurry, which gave certain qualities of the world neglected by clear eyesight the chance to come forth, such as the shocking beauty of color, and she remembered this with compassion for that silly young self, which had deserved to have her hand held. "
16 " That until now she was a Christmas tree that had been decorated by someone who hated Christmas. "
17 " Art is despait with dignity. "
18 " It bothered Veblen’s mother that most people were lazy and had given up original thought a long time ago, stealing stale phrases from the media like magpies. "
19 " He says marriage is a continuous inevitable confrontation that can be resolved only through death. "
20 " Do you think wishful thinking is a psychiatric condition? "
