THE ZERO INSTITUTE

"We know nothing."

[dreamy-conceit]

There is certainly an argument that other dealers see themselves as hedgehogs outraged by a fox, when they’re actually foxes outraged by a wolf.

— Glenn Horowitz, quoted by Tad Friend in 'A Controversial Rare-Book Dealer Tries to Rewrite His Own Ending' (New Yorker, 21 Oct 2024)

[dreamy-conceit]

It feels somewhat as if you’re endeavoring to indict me for conducting business with more energy and imagination than others.

— Glenn Horowitz, quoted by Tad Friend in 'A Controversial Rare-Book Dealer Tries to Rewrite His Own Ending' (New Yorker, 21 Oct 2024)

[dreamy-conceit]

It seems strange - how we used to wait for letters to arrive. But what's stranger still is how something so small can keep you alive. We used to wait—

— Arcade Fire, 'We Used to Wait'

[dreamy-conceit]

Someone had told me that plant medicine is nature trying to protect itself by turning into a telephone with which it can let the humans know that they (plants) are alive and feeling and don’t want to die.

— Lisa Carver, 'The Living Death Drug' (The Paris Review, 25 February 2025)

[dreamy-conceit]

Térézia, who having toppled Robespierre and shut down the Jacobin Club was not particularly afraid of gossip, was sometimes provocative. Once, at a party, she made a bet that her whole outfit – including the sandals – weighed less than two livres, and won the bet by taking everything off and having it weighed.

— Rosemary Hill, 'No More Corsets' (London Review of Books, 6 March 2025)

[dreamy-conceit]

Something I never understood about most religions that worship a deity is why would that deity want to be worshipped?

Like, why would a deity so powerful they can create an entire universe with complex lifeforms feel the need to be worshipped?

Like, to create an entire life form whose sole purpose is to worship you seems like extremely narcissistic. You are this powerful god, this powerful deity, yet you want to create lesser beings to worship you. It seems weird to me this all-powerful being will create inferior beings just to stroke their ego.

— dissdeity (TikTok, 22 Nov 2024)

[dreamy-conceit]

I had a purpose before everybody had an opinion.

— Jalen Hurts, NFL quarterback

[dreamy-conceit]

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz, or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off. I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers; thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance, risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you, so close that your hand on my chest is my hand, so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

— Pablo Neruda, 'Sonnet XVII'

[dreamy-conceit]

Great art should evoke powerful emotions or thoughts that can be brought forth in no other way. If art merely conjured the same experience that could be attained through knowledge of the author’s identity alone, there would be no point in making it, or going to see it, or writing about it. If an artwork’s affective power derives from the artist’s biography rather than the work, then self-expression is redundant; when the self is more important than the expression, true culture becomes impossible.

— Dean Kissick, 'The Painted Protest' (Harper's, Dec 2024)

[dreamy-conceit]

Would it be OK if we take a moment to honor this patient? Could we take a moment just to Pause and honor this person in the bed. This was someone who was alive and now has passed away. They were someone who loved and was loved. They were someone’s friend and family member. In our own way and in silence let us stand and take a moment to honor both this person in the bed and all the valiant efforts that were made on their behalf. (45 seconds to a minute of silence.) Thank you everyone.

— Jonathan Bartels, The Medical Pause

The Medical Pause is a practice after the death of a patient, giving medical staff time to honour the patient and feel closure.

[dreamy-conceit]

During the darkest days of the AIDS crisis, we buried our friends in the morning, we protested in the afternoon, and we danced all night. The dance kept us in the fight because it was the dance we were fighting for. It didn’t look like we were going to win then and we did. It doesn’t feel like we’re going to win now but we could. Keep fighting, keep dancing.

— Dan Savage, 'The Savage Lovecast', podcast episode #951, 21 Jan 2025. Please be aware that Dan Savage has said harmful goddamned things.

[dreamy-conceit]

The notes on this are wild because people are legit passionately arguing about why this wouldn’t work. No one said it would work. They said he’s a loser for not doing it.

— @exigencelost, on whether Light should have killed the richest person in the world every week.

[dreamy-conceit]

The libertarian principle is that people should be able to do whatever they want as long as it doesn’t harm others; the reality is that indulging idiocy debases society and is harmful to all.

— Adrian Nathan West, 'Steroid to Heaven' (The Baffler, Jan 2024)

[dreamy-conceit]

My opinion of The Deer Hunter and Coming Home - both brilliant films - [they] are really about civilians who went to war. Apocalypse Now is about professionals who invented it.

— Martin Sheen, who played Captain Willard in Apocalypse Now

[dreamy-conceit]

Journalists crowded around and asked Roslan the same question over and over. "Why did you do this? What made you risk your life? Why?" As usual, we seek out heroes with a religious fervor, and then we act incredulous when we find them. Finally Roslan turned to them in exasperation and said, "Why are you asking me why I did this? You mean there's another way to behave?"

— Alec and Mesa Roslan rescued three young boys during the Holocaust, at great personal risk. Two survived.

Published in Amanda Ripley's 'The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - And Why'

[dreamy-conceit]

The reason why you keep on fighting with your girlfriend about what she wants to eat, and she always says, "I don't know," is because women have been conditioned their entire lives not to look inward at themselves and figure out what they want, but to look outward at the world and figure out what the world wants from them.

So when you say, "What do you want?" for you that's a really easy answer. You say, "I want a burger," because you're not doing what she's doing, which is trying to figure out not only what she wants, but also what you want, without having any context or being able to read your mind. ...

... The reason why she's not familiar with looking inward at herself and saying, "I want a smoothie," is because she knows that if she says, "I would like a smoothie," you're gonna say, "I don't want a smoothie," and that's gonna be the end of the conversation, where you return the mental labour and the responsibility of figuring out not only what she wants but also what you want back to her.

— rodeomama3000 (TikTok, 29 Dec 2024)

[dreamy-conceit]

If they never ask you for your side of the story, then the side of the story that they heard is exactly how they feel about you.

— locdinwithmilsz (TikTok, 22 Dec 2024)