One day I found him amid large packages from which spilled attractive, glossy paperbacks with mythical covers. He had tried to use, as a "generator of ideas" — for we were running out of them — those works of fantastic literature, that popular genre (especially in the States), called, by a persistent misconception, "science fiction." He had not read such books before; he was annoyed — indignant, even — expecting variety, finding monotony. "They have everything except fantasy," he said. Indeed, a mistake. The authors of these pseudo-scientific fairy tales supply the public with what it wants: truisms, clichés, stereotypes, all sufficiently costumed and made "wonderful" so that the reader may sink into a safe state of surprise and at the same time not be jostled out of his philosophy of life. If there is progress in a culture, the progress is above all conceptual, but literature, the science-fiction variety in particular, has nothing to do with that.
“Everything we enjoy in society is a direct result of the accumulated learning derived from millions of mistakes. No mistakes, no progress. Yet we still look at making a mistake as embarrassing, wrong, an act bordering on sin. If youre making mistakes, it means youre doing new things, taking risks, stretching yourself. Youre growing, learning. And isn't the journey, the experience, not the destination, what life is all about?”
“Watching the young guys progress has really been great and rewarding. The seniors ... we feel we've been doing the best we can to help the guys come along. When I see things happen, see plays run right or Mario, Julian, Brandon, Micah going hard in different situations, it shows me how far they've come. I'm excited about our potential, too.”
“I think there are a lot of good ideas there. I think, again, progress has been impeded by the polarization of the issue. And we need to look at some short-term actions that we could take to improve the system, to start helping people have health care be more affordable and accessible, while working on a longer term solution _ which takes time, it takes consensus, it takes not worrying about who gets the credit.”
“By proposing to eliminate this vital program, the Administration is demonstrating an unconscionable lack of concern for students and families from low-income and working class communities who depend on GEAR UP for a better future. Just as baffling is the Administration's failure to understand that GEAR UP is realizing their stated educational goals. Eliminating GEAR UP and proposing new programs is not just inefficient - it jeopardizes the progress made to date and the ongoing efforts in hundreds of communities nationwide.”
“The fact that every borehole in the first phase of drilling has intersected copper mineralization is highly encouraging. Given the success of our first drill-tests, it is clear that all of the fundamentals are in place to form a significant IOCG deposit in this exciting new district. Our biggest challenge is that the alteration systems are very large and will require persistence to determine their nature and extent. To be honest, it's a nice problem to have and we are very pleased with the progress to date.”
“We continue to make very good progress on executing our strategic initiatives. During the quarter we continued our plan to invest heavily in remodeling and enhancing the customer experience in our U.S. toy stores, ... We remain confident that the improvement being made will deliver substantial benefits to Toys 'R' Us beginning with this year's holiday season and will allow us to better grow and enhance our business well into the future.”
“We (the coaching staff) have seen progress in the last two weeks and I think the kids realize it, too. Obviously you want to win every time you got out to play. Everybody wants to win. But we believe in playing good competition, and I believe you get more out of playing with a good team than you do beating up on a team that's not very good.”
“We stand now where two roads diverge. But unlike the roads in Robert Frost's familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road / the one less traveled by / offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth.”
“What have we achieved in mowing down mountain ranges, harnessing the energy of mighty rivers, or moving whole populations about like chess pieces, if we ourselves remain the same restless, miserable, frustrated creatures we were before? To call such activity progress is utter delusion. We may succeed in altering the face of the earth until it is unrecognizable even to the Creator, but if we are unaffected wherein lies the meaning?”