Attention. Deficit. Disorder.
a novel
BRAD LISTI
To my parents, Frank and Peggy Listi
Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
—SEXTUS PROPERTIUS
Familiarity breeds contempt.
—SYRUS
A penny saved is a penny earned.
—BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
You can’t take it with you.
—MOSS HART AND GEORGE S. KAUFMAN
God must love the common man, he made so many of them.
—ABRAHAM LINCOLN
God must hate the common man, he made him so common.
—PHILIP WYLIE
I’ve steered clear of God. He was an incredible sadist.
—JOHN COLLIER
There is a superstition in avoiding superstition.
—FRANCIS BACON
There’s a sucker born every minute.
—P. T. BARNUM
Man is a social animal.
—BARUCH SPINOZA
Man is a political animal.
—ARISTOTLE
Man is the measure of all things.
—PROTAGORAS
Man is a blind, witless, low-brow anthropocentric clod who inflicts lesions upon the earth.
—IAN MCHARG
The main thing needed to make men happy is intelligence…and it can be fostered by education.
—BERTRAND RUSSELL
Learned men are the cisterns of knowledge, not the fountainheads.
—JAMES NORTHCOTE
All paid employments absorb and degrade the mind.
—ARISTOTLE
A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell.
—GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.
—DALAI LAMA
Happiness? That’s nothing more than health and a poor memory.
—ALBERT SCHWEITZER
A humanitarian is always a hypocrite.
—GEORGE ORWELL
Sisyphus was basically a happy man.
—ALBERT CAMUS
Every actual state is corrupt. Good men must not obey laws too well.
—RALPH WALDO EMERSON
What do I care about the law? Hain’t I got the power?
—CORNELIUS VANDERBILT
Reality is a crutch for people who can’t cope with drugs.
—LILY TOMLIN
Of all the things I’ve lost, I miss my mind the most.
—JIMI HENDRIX
There are two ways to slide easily through life; to believe everything or to doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking.
—ALFRED KORZYBSKI
The no-mind not-thinks no-thoughts about no-things.
—BUDDHA
The art of living is the art of knowing how to believe lies.
—CESARE PAVESE
Always be sincere, even when you don’t mean it.
—IRENE PETER
When a man has pity on all living creatures, then only is he noble.
—BUDDHA
I tend to be suspicious of people whose love of animals is exaggerated; they are often frustrated in their relationships with humans.
—YLLA
He gave her a look you could have poured on a waffle.
—RING LARDNER
The only really happy folk are married women and single men.
—H. L. MENCKEN
The body of a dead enemy always smells sweet.
—AULUS VITELLIUS
Rubble is trouble.
—MUHAMMAD ALI
The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be.
—PAUL VALÉRY
A conclusion is the place where you got tired thinking.
—MARTIN H. FISCHER
A problem well-stated is a problem half-solved.
—CHARLES F. KETTERING
The certainties of one age are the problems of the next.
—R. H. TAWNEY
This is my death…and it will profit me to understand it.
—ANNE SEXTON
I’m not afraid to die. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.
—WOODY ALLEN
The universe is but one vast Symbol of God.
—THOMAS CARLYLE
Taken as a whole, the universe is absurd.
—WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Put three grains of sand inside a vast cathedral, and the cathedral will be more closely packed with sand than space is with stars.
—SIR JAMES JEANS
When it is dark enough you can see the stars.
—RALPH WALDO EMERSON
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