dialogue

I ran across an excerpt today (in English translation) of some dialogue/narration from the modern popular writer, Paulo Coelho in his book: Aleph.(Note: bracketed text is mine.)... 'I spoke to three scholars,' [the character says 'at last.'] ...two of them said that, after death, the [sic (misprint, fault of the publisher)] just go to Paradise. The third one, though, told me to consult some verses from the Koran. [end quote]' ...I can see that he's excited. [narrator]' ...Now I have many positive things to say about Coelho: He is respectable, inspiring as a man, a truth-seeker, and an appealing writer; but one should hesitate to call him a 'literary' writer based on this quote. A 'literary' author knows that a character's excitement should be 'shown' in his or her dialogue and not in the narrator's commentary on it. Advice for Coelho: Remove the 'I can see that he's excited' sentence and show his excitement in the phrasing of his quote.(Now, in defense of Coelho, I am firmly of the opinion, having myself written plenty of prose that is flawed, that a novelist should be forgiven for slipping here and there.)Lastly, it appears that a belief in reincarnation is of great interest to Mr. Coelho ... Just think! He is a man who has achieved, (as Leonard Cohen would call it), 'a remote human possibility.' He has won lots of fame and tons of money. And yet, how his preoccupation with reincarnation__one other than an interest in being born again as somebody else__uggests that he is not happy!

Well, I've always wanted to call my son

I'm a Buddhist. You might have a Christian obligation to catch pneumonia while you sit for two and a half hours listening to some twerp in a dress drone on about the virtue of wedded life but, dear as you are to me, I don't.

Discussion is impossible with someone who claims not to seek the truth, but already to possess it.

All I wanted was you. I tore down my wall for you. Now it's been rebuilt.

His friend laughed. 'You missed your calling, Freddie,' he said. 'You should have been one of the aforementioned clergy. Is this what marriage does to you? One shudders at the very idea.

The symbol of the Lotus flower gives a precious teaching that can inspire us to deal with life in the best possible way. Its roots take nourishment from muddy waters and yet bloom in full delicacy and beauty on the surface. Similarly, to have a positive mindset is a beautiful quality; nonetheless to be transformational it needs to be rooted firmly in reality to then blossom with the value which can be created from the muddy problem(s)

One says the things which one feels the need to say, and which the other will not understand: one speaks for oneself alone.

This, I believe, is the appropriate image of human intercourse -- appropriate because it recognizes the qualities, the diversities, and the proper relationships of human utterances. As civilized human beings, we are the inheritors, neither of an inquiry about ourselves and the world, nor of an accumulating body of information, but of a conversation, begun in the primeval forests and extended and made more articulate in the course of centuries. It is a conversation which goes on both in public and within each of ourselves.

I have seen a stunning amount of death and destruction. Creation yes, but more death than birth. Mankind has learned nothing from their forefathers. Their ancestors. It is true what they say: history does repeat itself, Delacroix, and those after history are left to make it, but how can they,_ he removed his hand from the globe, waving it thoughtfully through the air, __hen it has already been made?

If my 'mind' don't mind, I don't mind.

You know how there are words that never really__hey are never really quite right. You can't quite trust them. Use them. You know. Without p

What's that?' Thaniel said, curious. The postmarks and stamps weren't English or Japanese.'A painting. There's a depressed Dutchman who does countryside scenes and flowers and things. It's ugly, but I have to maintain the estates in Japan and modern art is a good investment.

Mori made an unwilling sound. 'I don't like Western art.''No look at this.' He lifted it from its package. It wasn't heavy. 'It's clever, it looks like busy Mozart.''What?''I . . .' Thaniel sighed. 'I see sound. Mozart looks like this. You know. Fast strings.''See? In front of you?''Yes. I'm not mad.''I didn't think so. All sounds?''Yes.

The real purpose of the opposition is to minimize the amount of money the ruling party will have stolen from the people at the end of its term.

...Society needs to open its collective mind to all ideas and ideologies. It needs to give its people the chance to listen to the opinions of others, and then examine them critically instead of rejecting them prematurely. Such a creative dialogue based on positive critical thinking can enhance and develop ideas.

Are you an idiot, or an idiot?' Gargarin hissed.'The first one. I really resent being called the second.

Humans want answers, answers that compute; this does not compute Will Robinson! This was dialogue between a young boy and a robot from a TV series in the late 1960s. This TV series was a precursor for the new technology humans were about to be introduced to in the late twentieth century.