Pray less

"The real solution is to see that such people have less time for prayer. . . ."

St. Teresa of Avila, Interior castle, Sixth mansions, chap. 3 (Complete works of St. Teresa of Jesus, translated and edited by E. Allison Peers, vol. 2 (London: Sheed & Ward, 1946), 280).  The context is, of course, crucial here.

"All the air things wear"

"The air without is impregnated with raindew moisture, life essence celestial, glistening on Dublin stone there under starshiny coelum.  God's air, the Allfather's air, scintillant circumambient cessile air."

James Joyce, Ulysses, Episode 14 (Ulysses:  the corrected text, ed. Hans Walter Gabler with Wolfhard Steppe and Claus Melchior (New York, NY:  Random House, 1986), 345, ll. 1407-1409).

"Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe," as sung by Israeli novelist David Grossman

"Ora tells Avram she will probably never know what really went on behind Adam and Ofer's closed door during that whole period.  Because what, in fact, did happen?  Two kids, one almost thirteen, the other just over nine, spent every day together, usually just the two of them, for three or four weeks during summer vacation.  They played computer games and foosball, chattered for hours, made up characters, and every so often they cooked shakshuka or pasta together.  'And while they did all that—don't ask me exactly how it happened—one of them saved the other.'"

David Grossman, To the end of the land, trans. Jessica Cohen (New York, NY:  Alfred A. Knopf, 2010), 411.  The story of how nine-year-old Ofer delivered his twelve-year-old half-brother Adam from his descent into hell begins on p. 406 (a passage too long to quote), and the descent into hell itself, on p. 386.

What's the harm?

"It's about a society on its way down, and as it falls, it keeps telling itself, 'So far so good... so far so good... so far so good.' It's not how you fall that matters. It's how you land."

 

La Haine (1995), dir. Mathieu Kassovitz. English from the subtitles. French: "C'est l'histoire d'une société qui tombe et qui au fur et à mesure de sa chute se répète sans cesse pour se rassurer: 'Jusqu'ici tout va bien, jusqu'ici tout va bien, jusqu'ici tout va bien...' L'important c'est pas la chute, c'est l'atterrissage."
     Cf. the population-bomb doomsday-er Paul Ehrlich, on the conservative Julian Simon, who won the famous bet between the two of them:  "Julian Simon is like the guy who jumps off the Empire State Building and says how great things are going so far as he passes the 10th floor" (Cass R. Sunstein, reviewing The bet:  Paul Ehrlich, Julian Simon, and our gamble over earth's future, by Paul Sabin (New Haven:  Yale University Press, 2013), in "The battle of two hedgehogs," New York review of books 60, no. 19 (December 5, 2013):  22).  Not that I'm a fan of what little I know of Paul Ehrlich.

The ACI on Dublin

"If church history, including our own recent experience, teaches anything it is that neither confessions without instruments nor instruments without common faith and order are sufficient to preserve unity."

Anglican Communion Institute, "Dublin post-mortem," February 4, 2011,  http://www.anglicancommunioninstitute.com/2011/02/dublin-post-mortem/.

Was ever an amulet so variously translated? Or is it just my French?

With gratitude to Michelle Beauclair for her help with a line of Testa's French.

"Good idea the repetition"

"Mass seems to be over.  Could hear them all at it.  Pray for us.  And pray for us.  Good idea the repetition.  Same thing with ads.  Buy from us.  And buy from us."

Leopold Bloom in James Joyce's Ulysses, Episode 13 (Ulysses:  the corrected text, ed. Hans Walter Gabler with Wolfhard Steppe and Claus Melchior (New York, NY:  Random House, 1986), 309, ll. 1122-1124).