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Allybird (Allybird)
Username: Allybird

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 88.104.142.59
Posted on Wednesday, July 07, 2010 - 08:27 pm:   

Some might find this link useful. I used it for permission to use lines from poems/prose (the epigraphs at the beginning of some stories for my last collection).

http://tyler.hrc.utexas.edu/

I found it very good and found the agents for the estates...especially for quotes from the work of Aleister Crowley, and I think I used it for Yeats and Edith Wharton, too.
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Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 85.222.86.72
Posted on Wednesday, July 07, 2010 - 08:47 pm:   

Feel free to use any of quotes of mine, Ally. No need to go through agents of estate, etc, since I either sacked all mine or murdered in them in cold blood
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Allybird (Allybird)
Username: Allybird

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 88.104.142.59
Posted on Wednesday, July 07, 2010 - 08:59 pm:   

Deal done. I'll put something in the middle of a story eventually, something you know you said.
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Carolinec (Carolinec)
Username: Carolinec

Registered: 06-2009
Posted From: 82.38.75.85
Posted on Wednesday, July 07, 2010 - 09:18 pm:   

Not to mention the fact that you're (presumably) still alive, Frank!
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Thomasb (Thomasb)
Username: Thomasb

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 69.236.170.165
Posted on Wednesday, July 07, 2010 - 11:17 pm:   

That is an excellent idea! Thanks!
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Allybird (Allybird)
Username: Allybird

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 88.104.142.59
Posted on Wednesday, July 07, 2010 - 11:21 pm:   

You are welcome, Thomas. I'm sure it will be useful to all of us.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.186.67.185
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 08:59 am:   

Quotations issue: do writers feel comfortable quoting from sources they haven't read? I think it's a bit dishonest and never do it. Plus it's decontextualising the words. That's why I always get annoyed when folk say stuff like, '"Hell is other people" - Sartre, you know?' Now, I slogged my way through Being and Nothingness and one thing I know is this: 'Hell is other people' doesn't mean what it sounds it should mean. Same must surely go for a billion other decontexualised quotations.

Just getting a gripe off my chest. :-)
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 10:04 am:   

With the Sartre thing (and many other such quotations) people have acquired it and now use it to define something - that's what happens with language: acquisition. If you're going to come up with a genius quote, don't start griping when people bastardise it.

I use quotations from sources I haven't read all the time - but only because those decontextualised lines inspired a certain story or novel in some way. Namely Shakespeare and the Bible. If the quote fits, wear it. You're utilising an existing quote to say something about what those words mean to you and to the story you're telling, not what they meant to the original author.

I will say, though, that I despise it when people over-use quotes and epithets as a way of trying to add substance to their own work. I've read stories where the quotations have a higher word count than the story that uses them.
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Allybird (Allybird)
Username: Allybird

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 88.104.142.59
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 10:05 am:   

I'd have to agree and say I certainly read my source material. I have a great love of Yeats' poetry from university, and read Crowley and Edith Wharton when I started writing in the genre.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 10:07 am:   

'Hell is other people' doesn't mean what it sounds it should mean.

I'd argue that it does mean that - maybe Sartre didn't intend it that way, but the rest of the world thought different. We stole his words and made them our own. I see that kind of thing as the ultimate flattery: the common man using a quote from a difficult work of philosophy. Wow...that's immortality right there, my friend.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 10:13 am:   

Btw, I use quotes for inspiration all the time. I have them on the first page of somethign I'm writing. Then, when the story or novel is finished, I delete the quote because I can't be arsed to hunt down permission to use it when the work is published.
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Allybird (Allybird)
Username: Allybird

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 88.104.142.59
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 10:19 am:   

'Then, when the story or novel is finished, I delete the quote because I can't be arsed to hunt down permission to use it when the work is published..

I see your point. And when you do hunt them down they can ask for too much money etc. I got mine free but it depends on how many lines of poetry you ask for etc. I asked for permissions for a first print run...then had to do it all over again for a second and it can take a long time.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 10:22 am:   

There's also the fact that these inspirations are private and generally esoteric, and the three or four people who actually read my work don't really need to know.

I suspect that a lot of writers use obscure quotes in their published work to advertise how clever they are - much in the same way that Stephen King uses rock lyrics to demonstreate that he's one of us, part of the common clan.

All IMHO, of course.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 129.11.77.197
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 10:24 am:   

>>>I'd argue that it does mean that - maybe Sartre didn't intend it that way, but the rest of the world thought different. We stole his words and made them our own. I see that kind of thing as the ultimate flattery: the common man using a quote from a difficult work of philosophy. Wow...that's immortality right there, my friend.

Isn't that what Hitler did with Nietzsche? Yes, it was.

No, no, no, do not misunderstand the original intention.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 129.11.77.197
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 10:28 am:   

Besides, if we're using 'hell is other people' as a quote to express the simpleminded notion that 'other people are cunts', we might as well just say 'other people are cunts'. Attributing the sentiment to Sartre is just pretentious. :-)
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 10:28 am:   

Yeah, I'm a Nazi. I might go and kick some arse on that other thread. Or kill some jews or summat.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 129.11.77.197
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 10:32 am:   

Riiight.

Well, that's the end of that debate, then.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 10:32 am:   

Attributing the sentiment to Sartre is just pretentious.

I disagree. It isn't pretentious, because it's an honest attempt to communicate that what is being said is much more than "other people are cunts".
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 10:33 am:   

Well, you infered that I was Nazi, you fascist.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 129.11.77.197
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 10:41 am:   

Speaking of Yeats, I'm sick with desire but fastened to a dying animal. By which I mean, of course, I desperately need a shag but I've got this sick dog tied to my leg.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 10:44 am:   

I'm sick with desire and fastened to a dying animal.

That's one of the best descriptions of addiction I've read. Haven't got a clue what Yeats meant by it, but he did take some child called Roland out of Grange Hill to a Dark Tower for a second coming.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.170.180.44
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 01:12 pm:   

It's about life, that line, I think.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.170.180.44
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 01:17 pm:   

If I saw such a common quote as that Sartre one at the start of a book I probably wouldn't read it. A quote for me must be something I've never heard of and really hit the spot. Gary; I think you can tell when the writer hasn't read the complete scource.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 01:33 pm:   

I'm with you and Gary on this one, Tony.

It would disappoint me to think one of my favourite authors would just pluck an arty quote out of the air for effect. Philip Pullman references Milton's 'Paradise Lost' extensively throughout 'His Dark Materials' and it is clear he read, analysed and loved the work. The same thing is evident in Ballard's 'The Unlimited Dream Company' which lovingly references the visionary artwork and poetry of William Blake throughout. That's how to use a literary influence to illuminate one's own work imo.

Just sticking a random quote at the beginning from something you haven't read but think will sound good is a cop-out imo.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 02:04 pm:   

I agree wholeheartedly. But I very much doubt that any writer worth his or her salt plucks a random quote out of the air just because it sounds good...

Sometimes, though, a single line can inspire an entire novel.
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Kate (Kathleen)
Username: Kathleen

Registered: 09-2009
Posted From: 213.122.209.76
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 02:21 pm:   

Absolutely, Zed! I might be put off if I saw a quotation in some fancy author's original language with no translation given (cos face it - that's just being a pompous arse) but it's never occurred to me to make any assumptions about the intentions behind an author using a quote.

If I remember right, the novelisation of Videodrome had "To extreme sickness, extreme remedies" and was attributed to Montaigne. I've never read him but have ever since associated the sentiment with masochism.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.243.21
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 04:36 pm:   

I side with Zed (is he the leader of that side?) on this - it's nice when the quote-user has read the work quoted from, but not necessary. And quotes ripped out of context can gain their own meaning that, usually, is a profundity the author didn't intend, say - but then why should WE be robbed of its profundity - like "Hell is other people" - because Sartre didn't originally intend it a certain way? That's Quote Fascism.

Also, things break down as you bring up more examples. Ripping a quote from, say, the book of Proverbs or Ecclesiastes, or Blake's "The Marriage of Heaven & Hell," which are essentially collections of quips... or what about opening lines, like the famous opening lines of Pride & Prejudice or Anna Karenina?... is the rule you have to read the whole work, or what if you come across a great quote on page 7 of a 200 page novel?... or what if you've read the entire Being and Nothingness - are you, Gary, now, going to have to judge whether the reader understood that work sufficiently to be able to quote, "Hell is other people?"... and so on....
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.143.131.166
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 04:38 pm:   

It's like King Canute again; we think we know him, but we don't.
I was quoted once, by Simon Strantzas. It's on his website. I'm incredibly pleased by that.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.243.21
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 04:41 pm:   

And let me add one more thing. In the words of one Tony (Tony): It's like King Canute again; we think we know him, but we don't.

I do admit to having ripped this quote, however, out of its original context, simply not having had the time to read the entire posting from which it originated.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 04:44 pm:   

That's Quote Fascism
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 129.11.76.229
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 04:51 pm:   

All I'll say is this: Hell is other people has absolutely nothing to do with what it's commonly understood to mean. Nothing. Sartre would turn in his grave if he thought that was even part of his legacy.

Back soon for a scrap. :-)
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 04:57 pm:   

How do yu know he'd turn in his grave? Did you know him?

I think, judging that the play he quite is from is about a bunch of people locked up in a room together, it's closer to the mark than a quote fascist like you might think...

Whe-hey! Puddemup! Puddemup!
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 04:59 pm:   

It's like the internet: whatever we say here, nobody gets what we mean. Ever. They bring their own baggage to it all. Just like humanity has done with old Sartre's quote.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 129.11.76.230
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 05:00 pm:   

OK, describe in your own words what you think he means by the phrase.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.243.21
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 05:00 pm:   

"Hell is other people" can have two distinct meanings alone, whether one means it sardonically (other people are sometimes big fat c*nts), or with a sense of profound wonder (in this world, our "hells" are other people - not flames of the afterlife, not cars needing to go into the shop - but loved ones getting cancer, children turning into disappointments, parents deteriorating and we're left helpless watching them wither away, etc.)....

Would Sartre really turn in his grave, at those?...
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 129.11.76.230
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 05:04 pm:   

>>>It's like the internet: whatever we say here, nobody gets what we mean. Ever. They bring their own baggage to it all. Just like humanity has done with old Sartre's quote.

No, it is impossible to understand Sartre's quote without an appreciation of his philosophy of intersubjectivity. Lampoon if you wish, but you're incorrect here. Hell is other people does not mean what it's commonly understood to mean. And if by claiming otherwise, you call me a Thought Fascist, well, what can I say? Are we to conclude that there's no use in anyone trying to truly understand someone like Sartre via a close analysis of his work? That we may as well just skimread bits n pieces?
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 05:04 pm:   

I think Sartre meant that gary fry smells of poo. I mean, it's obvious: smell is like other people. It was a misprint.

As usual, this has gone off the point. My point was that it doesn't matter what an ambiguous quote means in the first place. What matters is what people think it means to them - what they adopt it to mean. You can't control that. It's what humans do. We like handy soundbites.

To me,( if not to Sartre), it means that hell is being stuck with other people.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 05:06 pm:   

Hell is other people does not mean what it's commonly understood to mean

I never claimed that it did. I claimed that to other people (see what i did there) it means that. Whcih was my point. You can't control it. This happens all the time...a quote just fits a certain mind-set or set of circumstances.

I mean, "you get nothing for ths game for two in a bed" was never meant as a sexual reference. And don't even get me started on "a bit of Bully".
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 129.11.76.230
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 05:07 pm:   

>>>Would Sartre really turn in his grave, at those?...

Neither is anything to do with what he was getting at in this context, and no amount of allusion to virtuous sentiments is going to get around the fact that reading the quote alone is going to tell you what he truly meant. I'm sorry, but I really must dig my heels in here. :-)
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 05:08 pm:   

reading the quote alone is going to tell you what he truly meant

Who said that it did? Not me. See above.
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Kate (Kathleen)
Username: Kathleen

Registered: 09-2009
Posted From: 213.122.209.76
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 05:08 pm:   

Sorry Herr Frei but Monsieur Sartre says:

"I would like [people] to remember Nausea, No Exit and The Devil and the Good Lord, and then my two philosophical works, more particularly the second one, Critique of Dialectical Reason. Then my essay on Genet, Saint Genet...If these are remembered, that would be quite an achievement, and I don't ask for more."

So he's really not fussed what we make of that quote.

Fascist.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 129.11.76.230
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 05:09 pm:   

>>>I never claimed that it did. I claimed that to other people (see what i did there) it means that. Whcih was my point. You can't control it. This happens all the time...a quote just fits a certain mind-set or set of circumstances

Then why quote Sartre? To lend your point intellectual weight? Why not express the sentiment in your own words? Why make an allusion to such a body of thought at all? If it's what you mean and not what Sartre means, don't quote Sartre. N'est ce pas?
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 05:09 pm:   

Didn't he actually say "Hell is other peepholes". He said it in a Soho clipjoint, I believe...
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 05:10 pm:   

I give up.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 129.11.76.230
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 05:16 pm:   

Oh no, don't give up. It was just getting interesting. :-)

But I still say that if you want to express the feelings that Craig mentioned above, then Sartre isn't your man. Find another quote, cos this one will just confuse folk who've read Sartre. :-)
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 129.11.76.230
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 05:22 pm:   

Kate, the quote comes from No Exit. Being and Nothingness is its theoretical undergirding.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 05:29 pm:   

my picture
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 129.11.76.229
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 05:46 pm:   

He looks like Robert Aickman after a night on Ramsey's pipe.

("Hell is repetition" - Stephen King. And I don't give a fuck what he meant. :-))
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Carolinec (Carolinec)
Username: Carolinec

Registered: 06-2009
Posted From: 82.38.75.85
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 06:04 pm:   

Can anyone other than Satre actually tell us what he meant?
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Carolinec (Carolinec)
Username: Carolinec

Registered: 06-2009
Posted From: 82.38.75.85
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 06:05 pm:   

Ooops, that should read Sartre, of course.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 129.11.76.230
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 06:06 pm:   

Now I give up. :-)

If that's an argument you wish to wield, let's abolish language. It serves no use.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 06:08 pm:   

cmawfhqag gfjgAUCBH
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Kate (Kathleen)
Username: Kathleen

Registered: 09-2009
Posted From: 213.122.209.76
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 06:21 pm:   

Abolish language and go here:

http://www.cthuugle.com/en/
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.5.14.180
Posted on Friday, July 09, 2010 - 04:34 am:   

Hmmm... I'm not so sure how useful that search engine is. "XXX pornstars," "MILF" and "full release massage," for example, came up with 0 results.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.5.14.180
Posted on Friday, July 09, 2010 - 04:38 am:   

Yeah, Sartre, Sartre, Sartre... I just wonder how, say, Mr. Bigshot Sartre's FarmVille would look, if he were alive today?...
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.170.177.56
Posted on Friday, July 09, 2010 - 07:34 am:   

I agree with Gary. You wouldn't use an old fridge lying sideways as a coffee table, would you? Whatever meaning we get from that quote it's the using it a bit lazily that counts. But then 'Hell IS other people', the quote still stands, whoever said it. I just think yes though, use your own equivalent words.
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.171.129.70
Posted on Friday, July 09, 2010 - 07:53 am:   

Surely the best quote attributation comes from Garth Mahrenghi, when he puts some Shakespeare in the start of one of his books and instead of the line and verse number gives us the page number of the book he's taken it from...

Hee hee hee.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.186.67.185
Posted on Friday, July 09, 2010 - 07:58 am:   

Was thinking about this last night: if Sartre had meant Hell is other people in the way it's been taken to mean, he wouldn't have spent 200,000 words (Being and Nothingness) describing something else. He'd have written Hell is other people - four words - and then fucked off down the riverside cafe for a smoke and a moan about the national football team. (Camus would of course have defended any derogatory comments about the goalkeeper.)

Also, taking up a comment according to what you think it means, rather than what the author meant, is disrespectful to those additional 200,000 words. I mean, Sartre could have enjoyed more ale and footie, you selfish bastards! But no, instead he sat and slogged and didn't even have a PC! And yes, if he thought folk believed that Hell is other people had been reduced to the above, he'd turn in his grave.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.186.67.185
Posted on Friday, July 09, 2010 - 08:00 am:   

In other words, and not to get off the point, it's potentially dangerous to decontextualise a quotation. Not in all cases, admittedly, but certainly in many. In other words, bog off, all of yez. :-)
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.171.129.70
Posted on Friday, July 09, 2010 - 08:03 am:   

Paul the octopus.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.233.111
Posted on Friday, July 09, 2010 - 08:11 am:   

Ah, Gary, but the original phrase Sartre used is: l'enfer, c'est les autres, so for one, "Hell is other people" is not even accurately quoting Sartre - literally, it's English, and the other's in French. So unless you object to someone attaching Sartre to it, what's the prob? "As someone famous once said, 'Hell is other people,' after all" - would you respond, "NO, that someone was Sartre, and he wouldn't have used it in this context, let alone English, but anyway, he wouldn't have, so you can't, even though you used it correctly in this context to describe me, a ranting crazy man who publishes books somewhere in England and rants about Sartre, you moron, but to continue" etc.

Now, I ran the original French through an online translator, and it comes out: "Hell, it is the others." On Yahoo babelfish, it comes out, bizarrely: "l' hell, c' is the different ones." So NOW who's right?...
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.186.67.185
Posted on Friday, July 09, 2010 - 08:26 am:   

Instead of all this Googling, maybe you should just read Being and Nothingness. If you did, there's no way you'd be taking the position you have above. No way.

Gotta go. Bye. Have a nice day. Au revoir, mon amis (sp?).
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.171.129.71
Posted on Friday, July 09, 2010 - 08:33 am:   

'so NOW who's right?'

I refer the honourable gentleman to the reply I gave some moments ago.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.233.111
Posted on Friday, July 09, 2010 - 08:35 am:   

Hey, I read "The Wall" again a few weeks back - don't that count for nothing?

You know what, Gary? Hell is yo mama.
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Kate (Kathleen)
Username: Kathleen

Registered: 09-2009
Posted From: 213.122.209.76
Posted on Friday, July 09, 2010 - 09:08 am:   

Problem is, if you're using a quote as an epigraph in a book wot you wrote, you can't really quote yourself. Unless you're Garth Marenghi.

You can quote a made-up book if you're clever. Or one of your characters. But that runs the risk of being overly self-indulgent.

I love epigraphs because they're like a snippet of music to set the mood before a novel. A tiny glimpse of something that spoke to the writer, perhaps even inspired what I'm about to read. Gives me a tantalising hint of what's in their mind. Like Zed says above, a quote out of context can be extremely personal. And it can be interpreted by the reader just as liberally.

I hear your angst re: the misuse of the Sartre quote, Gary, so I promise never to use it.
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Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey)
Username: Ramsey

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.93.21.74
Posted on Friday, July 09, 2010 - 09:53 am:   

"You can quote a made-up book if you're clever."

I must confess - hang on, no, I mustn't.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.55
Posted on Friday, July 09, 2010 - 10:03 am:   

Paul Theroux uses a quote from the lead character of Mosquito Coast as an epigraph for Millroy the Magician- this works well because the stories are thematically very similar, but whereas Allie Fox leaves civilisation to set up his own personal version, Millroy attempts to mold America into his own personal vision.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.186.67.185
Posted on Friday, July 09, 2010 - 09:52 pm:   

Guilda Kent . . .
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Hubert (Hubert)
Username: Hubert

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 78.22.234.38
Posted on Friday, July 09, 2010 - 09:56 pm:   

Paul the octopus.

He's great, isn't he? I think he should rule the world.

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