Jimmy Cline
https://www.goodreads.com/jimmyclineetc
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currently-reading (1)
to-read (955)
fiction (299)
western-philosophy (126)
film (74)
japan (50)
cultural-studies (37)
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drama (28)
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gaddis (17)
graphic-novels (17)
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Jimmy Cline
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"Mostly letters to his mother up to this point, regaling her with his various South American and Western excursions. Interesting stuff." — Apr 11, 2024 11:58PM
"Mostly letters to his mother up to this point, regaling her with his various South American and Western excursions. Interesting stuff." — Apr 11, 2024 11:58PM
![Loading... Loading...](https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/loading_big-5baaead7062b26142a19d19a9bccf5c2.gif)
![William T. Vollmann](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1393338082i/940746._UX200_CR0,14,200,200_.jpg)
“I just make the best book that I can and try to not worry about audience or if it will sell. The odds are against you, so why abuse your talent for the sake of a chimera? The only real pleasure for me in writing comes from pleasing myself. What readers think is interesting and illuminating (and it may even be correct), but that is nothing compared to the excitement of seeing a world develop. Besides, even though I like most individuals I meet, I have a pretty low opinion of people in general. So if I were to write for people in general, I would have to drastically lower my estimation of the intelligence of my reader. Rather than doing that, I write the way it seems the book has to appear. I don’t think that’s egotistic. There are often things I would like to include in my books—things about me personally and other materials—that I feel I have to leave out because they aren’t relevant to the book. I’m fairly ruthless along those lines, because I try to let nothing come in the way of what’s best for the book. If that means that the book won’t sell or that a publisher won’t buy it, then that’s my problem. I’ll suffer for that, but I won’t let the book suffer for it.”
―
―
![John Maynard Keynes](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1244623131i/159357._UX200_CR0,24,200,200_.jpg)
“I cannot leave this subject as though its just treatment wholly depended either on our own pledges or economic facts. The policy of reducing Germany to servitude for a generation, of degrading the lives of millions of human beings, and of depriving a whole nation of happiness should be abhorrent and detestable, - abhorrent and detestable, even if it were possible, even if it enriched ourselves, even if it did not sow the decay of the whole civilized life of Europe. Some preach it in the name of Justice. In the great events of man's history, in the unwinding of the complex fates of nations Justice is not so simple. And if it were, nations are not authorized, by religion or by natural morals, to visit on the children of their enemies the misdoings of parents of rulers.”
― The Economic Consequences of the Peace
― The Economic Consequences of the Peace
![John Maynard Keynes](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1244623131i/159357._UX200_CR0,24,200,200_.jpg)
“How can I accept the Communist doctrine, which sets up as its bible, above and beyond criticism, an obsolete textbook which I know not only to be scientifically erroneous but without interest or application to the modern world? How can I adopt a creed which, preferring the mud to the fish, exalts the boorish proletariat above the bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia, who with all their faults, are the quality of life and surely carry the seeds of all human achievement? Even if we need a religion, how can we find it in the turbid rubbish of the red bookshop? It is hard for an educated, decent, intelligent son of Western Europe to find his ideals here, unless he has first suffered some strange and horrid process of conversion which has changed all his values.”
―
―
![David Foster Wallace](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1615507112i/4339._UX200_CR0,2,200,200_.jpg)
“— and then you’re in serious trouble, very serious trouble, and you know it, finally, deadly serious trouble, because this Substance you thought was your one true friend, that you gave up all for, gladly, that for so long gave you relief from the pain of the Losses your love of that relief caused, your mother and lover and god and compadre, has finally removed its smily-face mask to reveal centerless eyes and a ravening maw, and canines down to here, it’s the Face In The Floor, the grinning root-white face of your worst nightmares, and the face is your own face in the mirror, now, it’s you, the Substance has devoured or replaced and become you, and the puke-, drool-and Substance-crusted T-shirt you’ve both worn for weeks now gets torn off and you stand there looking and in the root-white chest where your heart (given away to It) should be beating, in its exposed chest’s center and center-less eyes is just a lightless hole, more teeth, and a beckoning taloned hand dangling something irresistible, and now you see you’ve been had, screwed royal, stripped and fucked and tossed to the side like some stuffed toy to lie for all time in the posture you land in. You see now that It’s your enemy and your worst personal nightmare and the trouble It’s gotten you into is undeniable and you still can’t stop. Doing the Substance now is like attending Black Mass but you still can’t stop, even though the Substance no longer gets you high. You are, as they say, Finished. You cannot get drunk and you cannot get sober; you cannot get high and you cannot get straight. You are behind bars; you are in a cage and can see only bars in every direction. You are in the kind of a hell of a mess that either ends lives or turns them around. You are at a fork in the road that Boston AA calls your Bottom, though the term is misleading, because everybody here agrees it’s more like someplace very high and unsupported: you’re on the edge of something tall and leaning way out forward….”
―
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![William Gaddis](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1615573148i/15991._UX200_CR0,46,200,200_.jpg)
“When he was left alone, when he had pulled out one stop after another (for the work required it), Stanley straightened himself on the seat, tightened the knot of the red necktie, and struck. The music soared around him, from the corner of his eye he caught the glitter of his wrist watch, and even as he read the music before him, and saw his thumb and last finger come down time after time with three black keys between them, wringing out fourths, the work he had copied coming over on the Conte di Brescia, wringing that chord of the devil’s interval from the full length of the thirty-foot bass pipes, he did not stop. The walls quivered, still he did not hesitate. Everything moved, and even falling, soared in atonement.
He was the only person caught in the collapse, and afterward, most of his work was recovered too, and it is still spoken of, when it is noted, with high regard, though seldom played.”
― The Recognitions
He was the only person caught in the collapse, and afterward, most of his work was recovered too, and it is still spoken of, when it is noted, with high regard, though seldom played.”
― The Recognitions
![82746](https://images.gr-assets.com/groups/1351444635p1/82746.jpg)
This corner of goodreads shall serve the needs of rainbow readers of Mr Vollmann's indulgent body of work. We welcome the veteran and the fresh flesh ...more
![6870](https://images.gr-assets.com/groups/1217312745p1/6870.jpg)
A discussion group dedicated to the writings of James Joyce.
![79477](https://images.gr-assets.com/groups/1348000531p1/79477.jpg)
Women and Men began as a reading group for Joseph McElroy's masterpiece. It has developed into All Things McElroy. We have chapter threads for discuss ...more
![7715](https://images.gr-assets.com/groups/1219634887p1/7715.jpg)
the Bad Book Club -- a private group for friends and co-workers to (intentionally) read and discuss shitty books
![217](https://images.gr-assets.com/groups/1397137836p1/217.jpg)
To celebrate our love of reading books that people see fit to ban throughout the world. We abhor censorship and promote freedom of speech.
Jimmy’s 2023 Year in Books
Take a look at Jimmy’s Year in Books. The good, the bad, the long, the short—it’s all here.
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