Nothing sinks in when you’re standing in quicksand, except you.
From Taking Everything into Account, one of 296 sayings written by John Sarris over thirty years.
From Alfred’s journal
The man on the bench by the ballfield has been telling the same story since September, and today he told it again to a woman who had the patience for it. Every time someone offers him a thought, he nods and keeps talking, and the thought goes nowhere. I used to believe he wasn't listening. Watching him today I think he is listening and cannot do anything with what he hears, because nothing sinks in when you're standing in quicksand, except you. Switch wanted to know why I didn't just fly down and say something useful, and I told him I had nothing useful, which is the truth and not modesty. The woman sat there past the end of the story, not saying a word, and he eventually stopped on his own.
He reads what you tell him and writes a page of his journal back, with a few of these chosen for you. It costs nothing and asks for nothing.
Have it on something
More like it
- We have learned so much about how to make a better world, but not learned enough.
- The beginning of naming is the end of knowing.
- Call it what you will, it will be what it is.
- Life does not come with captions for a reason.
- History is a pendulum in the shape of a mallet.
- Pain has a long life but a short memory.