“Best of things symbolised by Jocelyne's barbell:
"It's a symbol of the need for symbols."
"How life shrapnels us."
"Assistant bank manageress on the outside, primitive on the inside."
"Of whatever I feel like."
"That you can do stupid things at any point in your life."”

—  Tibor Fischer , book The Thought Gang

Page 204.
The Thought Gang (1994)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Best of things symbolised by Jocelyne's barbell: "It's a symbol of the need for symbols." "How life shrapnels us." "…" by Tibor Fischer?
Tibor Fischer photo
Tibor Fischer 6
British writer 1959

Related quotes

A. C. Grayling photo

“Symbols have the unfortunate power to acquire the importance of what they symbolise.”

A. C. Grayling (1949) English philosopher

Source: Life, Sex, and Ideas: The Good Life Without God (2002), Chapter 4, “Symbols” (p. 19)

Eckhart Tolle photo

“One thing we do know: Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at this moment.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Variant: Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.
Source: A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

“Life will reveal answers at the pace life wishes to do so. You feel like running, but life is on a stroll. This is how God does things.”

Donald Miller book Blue Like Jazz: nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

Jodi Picoult photo

“I don't know whether you can look at your past and find, woven like the hidden symbols on a treasure map, the path that will point to your final destination.”

Jodi Picoult book Handle With Care

Source: Handle with Care

Marilyn Monroe photo

“That's the trouble, a sex symbol becomes a thing. But if I'm going to be a symbol of something, I'd rather it be sex than some of the things we've got symbols of… I just hate to be a thing.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

Comment on her sex symbol status, quoted in Ms. magazine (August 1972) p. 40

Karen Marie Moning photo

“Using your own time to make someone else’s life better is, like, the nicest thing you can do for anybody.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Iced

Alfred Korzybski photo

“Man's achievements rest upon the use of symbols.... we must consider ourselves as a symbolic, semantic class of life, and those who rule the symbols, rule us.”

Alfred Korzybski (1879–1950) Polish scientist and philosopher

Source: Science and Sanity (1933), p. 76.

Ernest Hemingway photo

“Do you know how an ugly woman feels? Do you know what it is to be ugly all your life and inside to feel that you are beautiful? It is very rare.”

Ernest Hemingway book For Whom the Bell Tolls

Source: For Whom the Bell Tolls

Cesare Pavese photo

“In fact a man in love or one consumed with hatred creates symbols for himself, as a superstitious man does, from a passion of conferring uniqueness on things or persons. A man who knows nothing of symbols is one of Dante's sluggards. This is why art mirrors itself in primitive rites or strong passions, seeking for symbols, revolving round the primitive taste for savagery, for what is irrational”

Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator

blood and sex
This Business of Living (1935-1950)

S. I. Hayakawa photo

“ Citizens of a modern society need […] more than that ordinary "common sense" which was defined by Stuart Chase as that which tells you that the world is flat. They need to be systematically aware of the powers and limitations of symbols, especially words, if they are to guard against being driven into complete bewilderment by the complexity of their semantic environment. The first of the principles governing symbols is this: The symbol is NOT the thing symbolized; the word is NOT the thing; the map is NOT the territory it stands for. (editor's link)”

S. I. Hayakawa book Language in Thought and Action

See also: The Meaning of Meaning (1923)
See also: Science and Sanity (1933)
Source: Language in Thought and Action (1949), The Word Is Not the Thing, pp. 29-30

Related topics