Quoth This

I’ve been given an assignment by one of my favorite bloggers out there, Jennifer of Balance, whose many professional blogging endeavors—and yes, professional blogging does exist—is Offbeat Homes, a blog dedicated to architectural eccentricity. I have to say I was quite honored by Jennifer’s reference to me as “my oldest most likeable blog buddy Benny.” Is that sweet or what? Well, I’m still going to fulfill that assignment, Jennifer, but first I’m going to do something that requires even less creativity on my part. I’ve been thinking that an easy way to post more frequently (but with less stress) would be to start sharing book quotes that I have enjoyed over the years. I haven’t always been diligent about keeping a record of enjoyable book quotes, so I can’t guarantee these will always be the absolute cream of the crop. Nevertheless, I’ve managed to rack up a decent list of quotables that I think are worth sharing.

To begin, I will start with the current novel I am reading, Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett. I haven’t read a Pratchett novel before, but my little sister was quite a fan of Good Omens and so while aimlessly wandering through my local library branch one day, I ended up perusing what books of Pratchett’s happened to be on the shelf. Thief of Time promised to be a philosophical satire of sorts, so naturally I had to pick it up. So far I think I’m reading it too sporadically to keep track of things as well as I should, but that hasn’t prevented me from finding some decent quotations. Here is one of the more recent gems I’ve stumbled upon, and one which I think is probably more true than we’d sometimes like to believe:

“Well?” said Lu-Tze.
“The Way has an answer for everything, does it?”
“Yes.”
“Then …” Lobsang nodded at the little volcano, which was gently smoking, “… how does that work? It is on a saucer!”
Lu-Tze stared straight ahead, his lips moving.
“Page seventy-six, I think,” he said.
Lobsang turned to the page.
“‘Because,’” he read.
“Good answer,” said Lu-Tze, gently caressing a minute crag with a camel-hair brush.
“Just ‘Because,’ master? No reason?”
“Reason? What reason can a mountain have? And, as you accumulate years, you will learn that most answers boil down, eventually, to ‘Because.’”