Quotations Weblog

I just finished reading Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell Sunday night. It was a really interesting book about the power of our minds to make very accurate snap decisions. Some call it intuition or others call it a gut reaction. No matter what you call it, the power of “blink” is a powerful tool.

I was hoping he would give us nice, neat little lists on how to make our instincts better. How to avoid prejudice and how to harness the power of “blink.” Instead, it’s a narrative story about this power with no helpful hints. Malcolm tries to explain why our intuition fails us sometimes and why, in high stress situations, it abandons us completely. It was a very interesting read and here are my favorite quotations from the book.

Read all of the quotations from Malcolm Gladwell here:

• Malcolm Gladwell Quotes – The Quotations Page

This was a really enjoyable book and a quick read. Give yourself a weekend with the power of your subconscious.

I remember reading The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe when I was a kid. My friend, Suzanne Clark, read the entire series when we were in junior high. I was barely able to get through the first book, so I didn’t try any of the others. I’m wondering if I should go back and read it to see if I missed anything important.

The movie based on this book is being heavily marketed to the Christian population. There are lots of other books talking about the Christian symbolism of C. S. Lewis’ work. I never saw any Christian symbolism when I was reading it as a child. All I knew is that I didn’t like their little brother, Edmund, very much. If I don’t like the characters, even the evil ones, I have a hard time reading a book.

Have no doubt, C. S. Lewis does have Christian leanings, but I wonder if he would like to see his work used as a way to profit off of Christians. All I can do is imagine Jesus walking in on the movie premiere. Even if they knew who he is, would he even be allowed on the red carpet without a makeover? It makes me wonder. I don’t know if I’ll go see the movie. Maybe I’ll just enjoy my favorite quotations from C. S. Lewis in the privacy of my own home.

See all of C. S. Lewis’ Quotations Here:

• C. S. Lewis Quotes – The Quotations Page

Last night, Mike and I went to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Condensing a 734-page book down to a two and half hour movie is a difficult task, especially when most of the audience has already read the book.

They did an excellent job on the movie. They were able to tell the whole story without cutting the essential elements of it all. I would have liked to see more of the torture that Rita Skeeter put Harry through with her stories in the Daily Prophet and I would have also enjoyed seeing her just desserts at the end, but Rita Skeeter was a minor character. They were able to bring about the most important elements of the book to the big screen and I’m so thankful we didn’t have to endure an hour-long segment on the Quidditch World Cup.

I read the book when it first came out and added the following quotations to our collection. Not one of them made it into the movie, however.

This quote is the closest one that made it into the movie. The movie made it better, however.

The quote from the book leaves it open, but the movie made it much more definitive.

Since we are nearing Halloween, here is a perfect book to satisfy your creepy reading desires. I finished reading Peeps, by Scott Westerfeld last week and it was a fun romp. There are a lot of quotes that I was able to cull from the book, but they all came from the first half. The last half of the book was so action-packed that there wasn’t much time for philosophizing.

This was a great book and a quick read. You could probably burn through this book in a day, so it’s great to grab for an enjoyable weekend. It’s the perfect read for this week right before Halloween.

For a plot synopsis and more information, see my review of this book on my weblog:

Pick Me! » Peeps by Scott Westerfeld

I just finished reading Perfect Circle by Sean Stewart. I’m always amazed at how many good quotes I can get from some authors and how few from others. It’s like some people write to be quoted and others don’t, somehow.

Sean Stewart writes like a man who should be quoted. I’ve taken all of these tidbits from his book to whet your appetite:

You can see my full review of the Perfect Circle on Pick Me! It was a great book for me to read and a glimpse into my life if I had gone the SLC Punk route instead of the one I’m on now.

• Pick Me! – Perfect Circle