WIST Quotations

McLaughlin, Mignon -- The Neurotic’s Notebook, ch. 2 (1963)

Dave — Mon, 07 Apr 2025 22:39:16 +0000

One of life’s few really reliable pleasures: to have a family you love, and to leave them for a week.

Mignon McLaughlin (1913-1983) American journalist and author
The Neurotic’s Notebook, ch. 2 (1963)
(Source)

Fry, Stephen -- Moab Is My Washpot, “Joining In,” ch. 3 (1997)

Dave — Wed, 14 Jun 2023 23:31:08 +0000

LSD reveals the whatness of things, their quiddity, their essence. The wateriness of water is suddenly revealed to you, the carpetness of carpets, the woodness of wood, the yellowness of yellow, the fingernailness of fingernails, the allness of all, the nothingness of all, the allness of nothing. For me music gives access to every one of these essences of existence, but at a fraction of the social or financial cost of a drug and without the need to cry ‘Wow!’ all the time, which is one of LSD’s most distressing and least endearing side-effects.

Stephen Fry (b. 1957) British actor, writer, comedian
Moab Is My Washpot, “Joining In,” ch. 3 (1997)
(Source)

De Stael, Germaine -- Quoted in Margaret Goldsmith, Madame de Staël (1938)

Dave — Fri, 04 Mar 2022 19:39:38 +0000

A voyage without companionship, that is to say without conversation, is one of the saddest pleasures of life.

Germaine de Staël (1766-1817) Swiss-French writer, woman of letters, critic, salonist [Anne Louise Germaine de Staël-Holstein, Madame de Staël, Madame Necker]
Quoted in Margaret Goldsmith, Madame de Staël (1938)

See also here.

Doyle, Arthur Conan -- Journal of Arctic voyage (19 Jul 1880)

Dave — Fri, 04 Jun 2021 22:25:08 +0000

Blowing a gale all day. Nothing to do and we did it.

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) British writer and physician
Journal of Arctic voyage (19 Jul 1880)
(Source)