“Where to start is the problem, because nothing begins when it begins and nothing's over when it's over, and everything needs a preface: a preface, a postscript, a chart of simultaneous events.”

— Margaret Atwood , book The Robber Bride

Source: The Robber Bride

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Margaret Atwood 348

Canadian writer 1939

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“Logically speaking, even the life of an actor has no preface. He begins, and that is all.”

Bram Stoker book Personal Reminiscences of Henry Irving

Preface
Personal Reminiscences of Henry Irving (1907)
Context: Logically speaking, even the life of an actor has no preface. He begins, and that is all. And such beginning is usually obscure; but faintly remembered at the best. Art is a completion; not merely a history of endeavour. It is only when completeness has been obtained that the beginnings of endeavour gain importance, and that the steps by which it has been won assume any shape of permanent interest. After all, the struggle for supremacy is so universal that the matters of hope and difficulty of one person are hardly of general interest. When the individual has won out from the huddle of strife, the means and steps of his succeeding become of interest, either historically or in the educational aspect — but not before. From every life there may be a lesson to some one; but in the teeming millions of humanity such lessons can but seldom have any general or exhaustive force. The mere din of strife is too incessant for any individual sound to carry far. Fame, who rides in higher atmosphere, can alone make her purpose heard. Well did the framers of picturesque idea understand their work when in her hand they put a symbolic trumpet.

“And that's when I know it's over. As soon as you start thinking about the beginning, it's the end.”

Junot Díaz book This Is How You Lose Her

Source: This Is How You Lose Her

“The preface? Why would he waste time with the preface? Skip the preface and move on to the meat of the thing!”

Kenneth Oppel (1967) Canadian children's writer

Source: This Dark Endeavor

“This is where it all begins. Everything starts here, today.”

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“But when the temperature does rise by a few degrees over the whole globe, there is a possibility that the icecaps will start melting and the level of the oceans will begin to rise.”

Edward Teller (1908–2003) Hungarian-American nuclear physicist

As quoted in Benjamin Franta, "On its 100th birthday in 1959, Edward Teller warned the oil industry about global warming" https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/jan/01/on-its-hundredth-birthday-in-1959-edward-teller-warned-the-oil-industry-about-global-warming, ', 1 January 2018.
Context: At present the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen by 2 per cent over normal. By 1970, it will be perhaps 4 per cent, by 1980, 8 per cent, by 1990, 16 per cent [about 360 parts per million, by Teller’s accounting], if we keep on with our exponential rise in the use of purely conventional fuels. By that time, there will be a serious additional impediment for the radiation leaving the earth. Our planet will get a little warmer. It is hard to say whether it will be 2 degrees Fahrenheit or only one or 5.
But when the temperature does rise by a few degrees over the whole globe, there is a possibility that the icecaps will start melting and the level of the oceans will begin to rise. Well, I don’t know whether they will cover the Empire State Building or not, but anyone can calculate it by looking at the map and noting that the icecaps over Greenland and over Antarctica are perhaps five thousand feet thick.