Quotes

Serving exactly what it sounds like, the Quotes feature excerpts other people’s thoughts.

Quotes: Believing All That Matters Is What They Want

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On his blog, author Jason Sanford talks about story submission and publication data, specifically with SFF genre in mind. He refers to an essay, an interview, and his experience as editor, and talks about how men tend to submit many more stories than women, even when their stories were “totally inappropriate” (in Jason’s words). His conclusion?

“In the case of why male authors are far more likely to not read a magazine or their guidelines before submitting, and are more likely to submit multiple stories in a short time frame, I think it ties in with them not seeing the motivations of others and believing all that matters is what they want.

“But if you’re submitting your stories to an editor, what you want isn’t what lands the acceptance. It’s what the editor wants. Otherwise, an author is merely wasting everyone’s time.”

– Jason Sanford

I’ve no comment on the data and survey side of the post, being a not-numbers person. What struck me was that this is the strongest-worded remark I’ve seen—and note that it really isn’t—saying a number of male authors behave in a blatantly self-centered manner and suggesting they change.

Sanford, Jason. “The Submissions Men Don’t See.” Jasonsanford.com, September 24, 2017.

Serving exactly what it sounds like, the Quotes feature excerpts other people’s thoughts.

Quotes: Nor Used It to Be Allowed … to Snatch from Their Seniors Dill or Parsley

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Socrates is the oft-quoted source for a scathing complaint on the rudeness of the young:

“Our youth now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love to chatter in places of exercise. Children are tyrants, not the servants of the household. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.”

– attributed to Socrates, 470/469-399 BCE

It seems it may, however, have been coined by one Kenneth John Freeman for his Cambridge dissertation published in 1907. I think, therefore, that I prefer the much less well-known (if more long-winded) section of Aristophanes:

“In the first place it was incumbent that no one should hear the voice of a boy uttering a syllable; and next, that those from the same quarter of the town should march in good order through the streets to the school of the harp-master, naked, and in a body, even if it were to snow as thick as meal. […] And it behooved the boys, while sitting in the school of the Gymnastic-master, to cover the thigh, so that they might exhibit nothing indecent to those outside; then again, after rising from the ground, to sweep the sand together, and to take care not to leave an impression of the person for their lovers. And no boy used in those days to anoint himself below the navel; so that their bodies wore the appearance of blooming health. Nor used he to go to his lover, having made up his voice in an effeminate tone, prostituting himself with his eyes. Nor used it to be allowed when one was dining to take the head of the radish, or to snatch from their seniors dill or parsley, or to eat fish, or to giggle, or to keep the legs crossed.”

– Aristophanes, Clouds 961

Especially taking the head of the radish—such an oddly specific bit—or snatching dill or parsley sound hilarious to the modern ear. If we can take this at face value, Clouds being a comedy.

Aristophanes, Clouds. In The Comedies of Aristophanes, edited by William James Hickie. London: H.G. Bohn, 1853?, via Perseus Digital Library.

Serving exactly what it sounds like, the Quotes feature excerpts other people’s thoughts.

Quotes: Little Moments of Being Sure

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One of Anne Corlett’s characters in the novel The Space between the Stars grasps at the meaning of life:

“Was this how it was for everyone? Little moments of being sure, of fitting into the world around you, all strung together on a flimsy thread of doubt and confusion and not belonging?”

– Jamie, The Space between the Stars by Anne Corlett

On one hand, sounds legit; on the other, not entirely, but when it does it’s terribly sad…

Corlett, Anne. The Space between the Stars. New York, NY: Berkeley, 2017, p. 310.

Serving exactly what it sounds like, the Quotes feature excerpts other people’s thoughts.

Quotes: How There’s Still Any Hesitancy to Front Women Characters in [Movie] Franchises

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Among John Scalzi’s thoughts on the Wonder Woman movie are these observations:

“[…] it’s worth noting that only one other film has outgrossed Wonder Woman domestically so far this year, and that’s Beauty and the Beast, another woman-focused film, and the one film remaining on the theatrical schedule this year that will outgross it will be The Last Jedi, which also has a woman as the protagonist […]

”The real issue here, to my mind, is how there’s still any hesitancy to front women characters in franchises, superhero or otherwise. There’s pretty clearly no significant financial penalty for doing so if your franchise is already up and running and your marketing is focused; honestly, at this point there’s only upside, if you manage to make the film better than its male-focused franchise siblings. That upside is perceptual in the short run, as it largely was here with Wonder Woman. But in the long run it’s likely going to add to your franchise financial bottom line. [original emphasis]”

– John Scalzi

Hear, hear. Although, I find I’m absent-mindedly wondering whether Scalzi’s conclusion would hold over the past few years’ worth of movies as well as for 2017. In the end, though, I’m much more interested in the movies themselves.

Scalzi, John. “Wonder Woman: A Smash, Possibly in Different Ways Than You Think.” Whatever, August 03, 2017.

Serving exactly what it sounds like, the Quotes feature excerpts other people’s thoughts.

Quotes: A Question that Pretty Much No One Actually Asked to Be Answered

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Aaron Pound at Dreaming About Other Worlds reviews the Star Wars movie Rogue One and includes this delicious bit of analysis:

“The obvious slicing and dicing of the intrigue and adventure in the early parts of the movie would be forgivable is [sic] one were able to think that it was done simply to try to cram as much of that as possible into the story, but instead the movie keeps shifting away from Jyn, Cassian, K-2SO and the rest of the intrepid rebels to focus on what can only be described as the deadly dull office politics of the Imperial Officer class. In large part, all these scenes really do is provide a really long-winded answer for the question ‘How did Grand Moff Tarkin become the commander of the Death Star’, which is a question that pretty much no one actually asked to be answered.”

– Aaron Pound

Reader, I LOLed. 🙂

Pound, Aaron. “Review – Rogue One: A Star Wars Story”. Dreaming About Other Worlds, June 01, 2017.

Serving exactly what it sounds like, the Quotes feature excerpts other people’s thoughts.

Quotes: My dear admiral, that post!

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Admiral and Mrs. Croft, out driving in their one-horse chaise have come across a group of their acquaintances walking and offered to give a ride to one of them. Anne Elliot joins them.

“Very good-humoured, unaffected girls, indeed,” said Mrs. Croft… “and a very respectable family. One could not be connected with better people.—My dear admiral, that post!—we shall certainly take that post!”

But by coolly giving the reins a better direction herself, they happily passed the danger; and by once after judiciously putting out her hand, they neither fell into a rut nor ran foul of a dung-cart; and Anne, with some amusement at their style of driving, which she imagined not a bad representation of the general guidance of their affairs, found herself safely deposited by them at the cottage.

– Jane Austen, Persuasion

 

One of the loveliest descriptions of marriage I have ever read: we make up for one another’s eccentricities and, however strange we may look to anyone else, we get where we’re going in the end.

Austen may be famous for her romantic pairings like Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, or Marianne Dashwood and Colonel Brandon, but I think Admiral and Mrs. Croft are one of her best images of real marital happiness.

Serving exactly what it sounds like, the Quotes feature excerpts other people’s thoughts.

Quotes: When Stories Clashed, One Had to Be Eliminated

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“One way or another the story was always about one story moving against another. When stories clashed, one had to be eliminated. That was the story of people. The government moved against the people. The military needed to take over a land or another resource because people only had limited value as a resource. The authorities burned down villages, separated families, forced them into labor or battle or sex. Men, women, children faced elimination so they ran away, ran away, ran away.”

– “The Volunteer” by Maurice Broaddus

This excerpt comes from a speculative short story, but it’s all too realistic. Sadly it seems that the current trend of whitewashing western history is nothing but the latest round of history-shaping through the shaping of people’s stories.

Doctor Who Thin Ice Gif 3of3

Doctor Who: “History is a whitewash.”

(From the Doctor Who episode “Thin Ice,” s. 10, ep. 3, written by Sarah Dollard.)

And when I say current, I mean roughly the last 100-150 years, because we’re presently dealing with not just the attitudes immediately surrounding us, but also with those of the latest two or three generations—history handed down to us by our parents and grandparents.

Nonetheless, pretty much as long as there’s been written history, we have references to various groups (re)framing other peoples‘ stories to legitimize conquest, enslavement, or other kind of dominance, or sometimes as propaganda against current (or past) adversaries.

Broaddus, Maurice. “The Volunteer.” In The Voice of Martyrs. Greenbelt, MD: Rosarium, 2017, p. 107.

Image via Ninon / amanitacaplan on Tumblr

Serving exactly what it sounds like, the Quotes feature excerpts other people’s thoughts.

Quotes: Women’s Emotional Lives Do Not Revolve around Men

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“It strikes me as unusual and as noteworthy that we should see two such dissimilar films [Moana and Arrival] foreground so strongly connection between women across generations within a family. To acknowledge that women’s emotional lives do not revolve around men, and also acknowledge a strong family component, without reducing the female characters to people who have no emotional lives outside their family concerns.

“These films are also really good speculative fiction. So I recommend them.”

– Liz Bourke

ALL. OF. THIS!

SO. MUCH!

Bourke, Liz. “Sleeps with Monsters: Intergenerational Female Influences in Arrival and Moana.” Tor.com, May 23, 2017.

Serving exactly what it sounds like, the Quotes feature excerpts other people’s thoughts.

Quotes: Sometimes Silence Is the Greatest Wisdom

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“’I think I’m supposed to say something, but I don’t know what,’ he said.

“’Then don’t say anything. Sometimes silence is the greatest wisdom.’”

– The volunteer and N’Kya in “The Volunteer” by Maurice Broaddus

Oh, so much this. Not only because I think it’s true, but because it reminds me of a cultural difference that’s highly personal to me. In my culture, silence is definitely seen differently than in the U.S. Over the years, I’ve struggled to explain it. This is the closest I’ve come so far:

For a Finn to be silent isn’t an indication of inattention or rudeness; far from it. Silently listening is a sign of interest, i.e., not interrupting before the other speaker has had a chance to finish. Silence means attention to the topic and respect towards another person’s life and space. (Finns need a larger bubble of personal space than other Europeans.) And silence can also be an indication of deep camaraderie.

In essece, then, silence means space, and space means respect.

Broaddus, Maurice. “The Volunteer.” In The Voice of Martyrs. Greenbelt, MD: Rosarium, 2017, p. 103.

Serving exactly what it sounds like, the Quotes feature excerpts other people’s thoughts.

Quotes: First-Name Basis with Your Information Professional

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“If you are on a first-name basis with your information professional, you are one of the smartest people in your company.

“If you are on a first-name basis with your information professional, you value your time.

“If you are on a first-name basis with your information professional, you are saving your company money.

“If you are on a first-name basis with your information professional, you value accurate, timely information.

“If you are on a first-name basis with your information professional, you know the importance of information and where to get the most bang for your buck.”

– Gloria Zamora

Gloria Zamora, past President for the Special Libraries Association, counterargues the claim that knowing your librarian by name means spending too much time in the library. Humbug, I say, to that erroneous argument! Not to mention balderdash, baloney, bunk, drivel, hogwash, malarkey, and poppycock. 🙂

Zamora, Gloria. “On a First-Name Basis with Value.” Information Outlook, vol. 13, no. 07 (October/November 2009), p. 3.

Serving exactly what it sounds like, the Quotes feature excerpts other people’s thoughts.