“I tell you: one must still have chaos in one, to give birth to a dancing star. I tell you: ye have still chaos in you.”
Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra. Originally published in 1891. Translated by Thomas Common. Reprinted online by English Server Philosophy Texts.
Amanuensis –noun. A person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another. More “I Am an Amanuensis.”
“In motion, you speak the language that language is based on.”
Lynda Barry, Picture This: A Near-Sighted Monkey Book. Montreal: Drawn and Quarterly, 2010.
Amanuensis –noun. A person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another. More “I Am an Amanuensis.”
“He couldn’t see why people made such a fuss about people eating their silly old fruit, anyway. But life would be a lot less fun if they didn’t. And there never was an apple [ … ] that wasn’t worth the trouble you got into for eating it.”
Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. Good Omens. Read by Martin Jarvis. New York: Harper, 2009. Originally published by Workman, 1990.
“The Fall of Man” by Hendrik Goltzius, 1616.
Amanuensis –noun. A person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another. More “I Am an Amanuensis.”
“‘Being in love is … anxious […]. Wanting to please, worrying that she will see me as I really am. But wanting to be known. That is … you’re naked, moaning in the dark, no dignity at all … I wanted her to see me and to love me even though she knew everything I am, and I knew her.’”
Audrey Niffenegger, Her Fearful Symmetry. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009. Page 277.
Amanuensis –noun. A person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another. More “I Am an Amanuensis.”
“Well, it turns out that you are not one thing. Your brain is made up of lots of competing sub-populations. The right way to think about the brain is [that it’s] like a neural parliament with different political parties that are battling it out to steer the ship of state.”
David Eagleman discussing his book Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain with Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report (the quote starts at 4:55). Sounds like someone’s been reading my comics!
Amanuensis –noun. A person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another.
“Now some men like the fishing / And some men like the fowling / And some men like to hear / A cannon ball a roaring / Me I like sleeping / ‘Specially in my Molly’s chamber.”
From the traditional Irish song, “Whiskey in the Jar,” my favorite version being Thin Lizzy’s.
Amanuensis –noun. A person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another.
“[. . . M]any five-year-olds entering kindergarten will still be mastering morphological rules, a typical feature of emergent speech. They will say, ‘I goed to my friend’s house yesterday.’ This grammatically incorrect utterance actually employs a sophisticated, though unconscious, understanding of grammar. The child knows that the way to form the past tense of most English verbs is to add the –ed suffix. This is an application of what [Noam] Chomsky calls Universal Grammar, enabled by the Language Acquisition Device. The child has observed, verified, and used a rule of English grammar, which is incorrect in this case not because the child failed to observe the rule, but because the verb fails to follow the rule.”
From Kaplan’s CSET preparation guide (Passing Score Guaranteed!), Third Edition, by C. Roebuck Reed, Lee Wherry Brainerd, and Rodney Lee. Page 8, emphasis added.
Amanuensis –noun. A person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another.
“Did you exchange / a walk-on part in the war / for a lead role in a cage?”
Pink Floyd, “Wish You Were Here” from Wish You Were Here.
Amanuensis –noun. A person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another.
“There was something about Christmas Eve [. . .] that demanded company. One needed somebody to whisper to during the warm, beautiful dream-taut moments between hanging the empty stocking at the end of the bed, and dropping into the cozy oblivion that would flower into the marvel of Christmas morning.”
Susan Cooper, Over Sea and Under Stone, Book 1 of her series The Dark is Rising.
Amanuensis –noun. A person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another.
Lip Service — well, that’s all you’ll ever get from me
Well, how could you believe I’ll take you seriously?
With your cheap rewards, your blackmail, and your comical rage
Just remember you’ll only be the boss so long as you pay my wage
Elvis Costello in “Cheap Reward,” from the rerelease of his album, My Aim is True. The lyrics are reminiscent of Bob Dylan’s “Maggie’s Farm.” Here’s a video of Costello performing “Cheap Reward” with Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report.
Amanuensis –noun. A person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another.
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