I hate when I pick up a novel or a short story collection and there's the introduction that praises the novel as great, a masterpiece, the cornerstone of the 20th century, so funny, exciting, etc., and then I can't read it because it seems boring. I keep thinking, "When is this going to turn into a cornerstone of the 20th century? When will this turn my world around? When will this start to get funny?"
That's why Salinger forbade introductions and similar things to his novels.
That's why Salinger forbade introductions and similar things to his novels.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
