Monday, December 15, 2008

Respectability

"Yes. All right--Respectability. That was what did it. I found out some time back that its idleness breeds all our virtues, our most bearable qualities---contemplation, equableness, laziness, letting other people alone; good digestion mental and physical: the wisdom to concentrate on fleshly pleasures---eating and evacuating and fornication and sitting in the sun--than which there is nothing better, nothing to match, nothing else in all this world but to live for the short time you are loaned breath, to be alive and know it--oh yes, she taught me that; she has marked me too forever--nothing, nothing. But it was only recently I have clearly seen, followed out the logical conclusion, that it is one of what we call the prime virtues---thrift, industry, independence--that breeds all the vices--fanaticism, smugness, meddling, fear, and, worst of all, respectability."

I think that this quotation by William Faulkner is the perfect starting point for this blog. And I think it stands alone. And so we begin.

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