Daily Quote : Skepticism and Amusement

From Christopher McDougall's Born To Run

The desert glare had scrunched his eyes into a permanent squint, leaving his face capable of only two expressions: skepticism and amusement. No matter what I said for the rest of the night, I could never tell if he thought I was hilarious or full of shit.

Daily Quote : Who You Are

From Robin Sharma's The Greatness Guide Book 2

How can you be who you are if you don't know who you are?

Daily Quote : Something Important

From Julia Quinn's It's In His Kiss

"I think something important is about to happen,' Hyacinth said with a sigh.

"Something important is always about to happen, my dear girl," Lady Danbury said. "And if not, you'd do well to act as if it were. You'll enjoy life better that way."

Optimism

"What is optimism?" said Cacambo.

"Alas!" said Candide, "it is the mania of maintaining that everything is well when we are wretched."


- excerpt from Voltaire's Candide

proxemics, haptics, oculesics, kinesics, olfactics

Excerpt from Lee Su Kim's A Nyonya in Texas

"Our sense of proxemics, the non-verbals we employ, our haptics, oculesics, kinesics and olfactics are culture-bound, internalised by us as the result of the cultures we grew up in."

What a mouthful!! Here's the meanings of those big big words.

proxemics
- Sociology, Psychology. the study of the spatial requirements of humans and animals and the effects of population density on behavior, communication, and social interaction.
- Linguistics. the study of the symbolic and communicative role in a culture of spatial arrangements and variations in distance, as in how far apart individuals engaged in conversation stand depending on the degree of intimacy between the

haptics
- the branch of psychology that investigates cutaneous sense data.

oculesics
- the use of the eyes in a communication setting. Whereas in most Western cultures, the use of direct eye contact symbolises listening and attention, direct eye contact is seen as unfavourable by, for example, various Asian cultures.

kinesics
–the study of body movements, gestures, facial expressions, etc., as a means of communication.

olfactics
- is the sense of smell driven by the detection of volatile or, in the case of the accessory olfactory system, fluid-phase chemicals. The chemicals themselves, generally at very low concentrations, are called odors.

... global case of

Excerpt from Anne Tyler's The Accidental Tourist

"She was obviously intelligent, but she counteracted that with the most global case of superstition that Macon had ever witnessed."

Such a beautifully constructed sentence.

... Caps and More Caps

Excerpt from Marisha Pessl's Special Topics In Calamity Physics

"Anxiety, Doubt and Uncertainty had unexpectedly stood up in Jade's voice and now they were meandering through it making Helluva Good Time quite nervous."

This book has so so many beautiful sentences.

... another man's heart.

Excerpt from Hisham Matar's In The Country Of Men.

"... but it's a sign of madness, I know, to claim to know what is in another man's heart."

... notwithstandings.

Excerpt from Ismail Kadare's The File on H.

He had long envied Dull's style in secret, especially turns of phrase like "leaving aside the fact that this task is not incumbent upon the present writer", or all those "notwithstandings" that he sprinkled around his sentences with such elegance. The governor himself used to try to insert that last word wherever he could in his letters, even when it did not really fit at all, and on rereading his texts he always found himself obliged to cross it out again.

I find this passage dryly funny. Reminds me of the style of writing I applied in secondary school - to fill up the quota of 350 words on the BM karangan. Haha.

... tidy books.

Excerpt from Margery Allingham's More Work for the Undertaker.

"The rest was books, not one of them dusty and dog-eared. They filled the walls and side tables and the tops of cabinets, overflowing into heaps in corners and on chairs.
Yet it was the tidiest living-room in Charlie Luke's wide experience."

Now that would be a book-lover's paradise. I can't seem to keep my books in sterling condition, they insist on yellowing at the exposed top. And dusty, too.

... ignoring

Excerpt from Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale.

"We lived, as usual, by ignoring. Ignoring isn't the same as ignorance, you have to work at it."

... uncontrollable orgy of printed paper

Excerpt from Isabel Allende's Paula

"I wandered among heavy Spanish furniture, marble statues, and pastoral paintings, calling my grandmother's name, seeking her among the piles of books that filled every corner and reproduced at night in an uncontrollable orgy of printed paper."

I like the last bit. Sounds just like my library floor.