“The fact that we are I don't know how many millions of people, yet communication, complete communication, is completely impossible between two of those people, is to me one of the biggest tragic themes in the world.”
Interviewed in Paris Review, Summer 1955; reprinted in Malcolm Cowley (ed.) Writers at Work (New York: Viking Press, 1959) p. 153.
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Georges Simenon 7
Belgian writer 1903–1989Related quotes
Speaking at the second annual graduate fortnight of the New York Academy of Medicine, 15 October 1929. [Lays Nervous Ills to Use of Tobacco: Dr. B.B. Crohn Says Excessive Smoking Is More Serious Problem Than Drinking: Warns Against Cigarette: Medical Fortnight Speaker Lists Excitable States, Hyperacidity and Ulcers as Effects, The New York Times, 16 October 1929, http://search.proquest.com.dclibrary.idm.oclc.org/docview/104691648/87889E05D1964D8EPQ/1?accountid=46320]
“For the state to wither away completely, complete communism is necessary.”
Source: (1917), Ch. 3
From books
Source: Jean Vanier, Community And Growth, 1979
1990s, Why "Free Software" is better than "Open Source" (1998)
Context: We are not against the Open Source movement, but we don't want to be lumped in with them. We acknowledge that they have contributed to our community, but we created this community, and we want people to know this. We want people to associate our achievements with our values and our philosophy, not with theirs. We want to be heard, not obscured behind a group with different views. To prevent people from thinking we are part of them, we take pains to avoid using the word "open" to describe free software, or its contrary, "closed", in talking about non-free software.
In "I am not a flake" https://blog.givewell.org/2007/03/06/i-am-not-a-flake/, March 2007
Context: I have more pet peeves than anyone else I know, and one of the very biggest ones is what I call flakes: people who say they'll do something, then back out without giving me the communication I need to adjust my plans. Anyone who's ever stood me up, or even been very late to something without a heads-up phone call, or just forgotten to do something they knew I was counting on them to do, has felt my wrath … thanks to cellphones and email, there is just no excuse.
Source: On how he might view his theater work as community activism in “Art Talk with Playwright & Director Rick Shiomi” https://www.arts.gov/art-works/2016/art-talk-playwright-director-rick-shiomi in Art Works Blog (2016 Mar 31)
Source: Utopia of Usurers (1917), pp. 33-34
Vanity Fair (February 1920)
Variant: There may be said to be two classes of people in the world; those who constantly divide the people of the world into two classes, and those who do not.
Context: There may be said to be two classes of people in the world; those who constantly divide the people of the world into two classes, and those who do not. Both classes are extremely unpleasant to meet socially, leaving practically no one in the world whom one cares very much to know.