One of the hazards of my profession obsession are the tantalizing bits that float in our shared consciousness. You know, articles, disquisitions, trenchant pieces of wisdom. Any time I see something worth remembering, I grab it, save it, put it away in a collection (actually multiple collections; yes, that’s a problem). At this point, I have quite a number of them. Better to share, I suppose, than to hoard. So here you go, friends… Here you go. Some epigraphs, aphorisms and truisms. Enjoy.
Three Sides
Robert Evans, Hollywood producer: “There are three sides to every story: my side, your side and the truth.”
Groucho Marx: “A child of five could understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five.”
Director Akira Kurosawa on his film, Rashomon: “Human beings are unable to be honest with themselves about themselves. They cannot talk about themselves without embellishing. [They] cannot survive without lies to make them feel they are better people than they really are…”
Robert Watson-Watt who developed early warning radar in Britain to counter the rapid growth of the Luftwaffe, propounded a “cult of the imperfect”, which he stated as “Give them the third best to go on with; the second best comes too late, the best never comes.”
Deer in Headlights
Anonymous woman on Reddit: “Freeze should be the third option after fight or flight. Because that’s what I do. Like a deer in headlights.”
Actress Mabel Albertson: “Make a good bluff. Then make the bluff good.”
Alanis Morissette (quoting her dad): Sweetheart, there’s three ways people will perceive you in the world: They’re going to love you and you can do no wrong, they’re going to hate you and you can do no right, or they just won’t give a shit. It’s going to be one of those three, so enjoy!
Ambiguity
Journalist Janet Malcolm: “Life is infinitely less orderly and more bafflingly ambiguous than any novel.”
E.B. White’s observation: “Explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog. You understand it better but the frog dies in the process.”
As the mathematician John Allen Paulos so eloquently said, “Uncertainty is the only certainty there is, and knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security.”
Mike Tyson: “Everybody’s got a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”
Copyright Leland E. Hale (2022). All rights reserved.
Order “What Happened In Craig,” HERE and HERE. True crime from Epicenter Press.