1090 replies to this topic

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, November 26, 2002
********************************
Are there any laws in history?
Some say yes, others no.
(So what else is new?)
And I say: If there are laws in human conduct
(such as "If you live by the sword, etc.")
why not laws in history? -- such as,
If you underestimate your enemy again and again,
sooner or later you will bite the dust.
(Our history in a nutshell.)
*
If I were to state the obvious, namely:
like all nations we have produced our share of hooligans,
and if I were to define hooliganism,
it goes without saying that
our hooligans will gang up against me and
disagree not only with everything I say
but also with my existence.
Something similar could be said
about our lunatic fringe and assorted fanatics.
*
There is sophistry and there is perversion
and what’s beautiful about perversion is that
the pervert carries within him
the seeds of his own contradiction
and ultimately destruction.
*
The trick is not to love those who hate you --
any saint can do that! -- the real trick is
to laugh at them, and I don't mean ridicule or,
for that matter, ironic or sarcastic laughter,
but good-natured merriment.
Because nothing can be as offensive as laughter
to grim ones who take themselves seriously.

[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, November 27, 2002
***********************************
"I am proud to be an Armenian!" he writes
and signs himself "Anonymous."
*
Whenever I am insulted anonymously, I think:
"He must be a bishop or the son of one."
*
It must be a disappointing experience for smart Armenians
to come across a fellow Armenian
who may not be as stupid as they think he ought to be.
*
Show me a smart Armenian
and I will show you an Armenian
who has a low opinion of his fellow Armenians.
Or: Show me a smart-ass
and I will show you a jackass.
*
The worst punishment for a nuisance:
to condemn him to live with himself for the rest of his life.
*
The internet must be just about the greatest medium
devised by man that allows one to make an ass of himself
in the eyes of the world.
*
Ignorance as an inevitable stage: a universal condition.
Ignorance as destiny: the source of all evil.
*
All verbal hell is bound to break loose
when a complex meets a prejudice.
*
My critics are my most reliable sources of stimulus.
When I read them I feel like a miner
who has hit paydirt.

[nairi]

LOL!

Great posts again Ara! (You really do make me reflect each time!)

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, November 28, 2002
*******************************
From a 1952 interview with Arshak Chobanian.
On contemporary Armenian literature:
"We have talented writers as well as nonentities."
When asked to name names:
"In France we have Marie Atmajian, a very gifted poet."
On Armenians in general:
"I have always maintained that
we have produced and we will continue to produce
great talents, what we cannot produce is a [great] community."
On the situation of the Armenian writer:
"An Armenian writer cannot make a living by writing.
Poor [Hagop] Baronian, one of our most brilliant humorists,
went hungry. He had no choice but to work as an accountant
to make ends meet. He balanced books for wealthy merchants."
On Shahan Shahnour: " The poor fellow is a sick man.
He writes nonsense in French and he is even awarded literary prices."
On Manoog Abeghian’s Sovietized orthography:
"I had an argument with Abeghian when I was in Armenia.
How could you devise such an unmitigated fiasco? I asked,
and he replied: "Baron Chobanian, I was ordered to do it.
I had no choice in the matter.
I submitted three systems:
one conservative with very few changes;
the second moderate with more changes;
and the third radical with many changes.
The State chose the third."

[ara baliozian]

Friday, November 29, 2002
*******************************
There is nothing wrong in criticizing America –
Americans have been doing it for centuries.
But criticizing America in defense of bloodthirsty tyrants
has nothing to do with morality, politics and history,
and everything to do with pathology.
*
Likewise, I see nothing remotely questionable
in criticizing Israel – Jews have been doing it for decades.
But criticizing it in the name of religious fanatics
with a genocidal hatred for not only Jews but also the West
has nothing to do with fair play or justice
and everything to do with hooliganism.
*
What could be more oxymoronic than Armenians
supporting genocide? And yet….
*
When Stalin was alive,
there were many Western intellectuals,
among them Nobel-prize winners,
who adopted a pro-USSR and an anti-USA stance.
God help us from the ignorance of the wise
and the hooliganism of dupes, fools and fanatics.
*
Our hooligans: I see them as reincarnations
of our commissars who in successive waves
exterminated our ablest men as ruthlessly and systematically
as Talaat’s henchmen.
The only reason our hooligans are not yet guilty of murder is that
they don't have a license to kill.
Another reason why I am grateful to the West.
*
Our hooligans: I doubt if I have yet done justice to this subject
so central for a better understanding of our past tragedies,
present disarray and future tunnel minus a light at its end.
*
Compare the vocabulary of our hooligans
with that of our Bolshevik hoodlums – traitors,
enemies of the people, peddlers of trash,
brown-nosers of the West,
hyenas with fountain pens,
running dogs of the bourgeoisie,
agents of the CIA – see what I mean?
Revive the KGB, give them a license to kill,
and draw your own conclusions.

[ara baliozian]

Saturday, November 30, 2002
*******************************
When a religion of compassion and love
enters a man’s soul,
hatred of the godless and the infidel is sure to follow.
Something similar could be said of ideologies
that promote brotherhood.
*
For another view of our fedayees,
see Gourgen Mahari’s memoirs.
The integrity of our ablest historians has been questioned
but as far as I know no one has yet questioned
Mahari’s integrity, and Mahari’s evidence is not hearsay
but first-person eyewitness.
*
In one of his novels Saul Bellow asks:
"Is our species crazy?" and replies:
"Plenty of evidence."
*
When the American author
of the famous slogan "Follow your bliss!"
wrote to Thomas Mann asking for his approval,
Mann wrote an angry letter in which he said:
"The bliss of a hooligan is hooliganism!"
or words to that effect.
*
If you can say something in two words
rather than three, try to say it in one.
*
A historian should be criticized by other historians
not insulted by hooligans.
A writer should be criticized by literary critics
not verbally vandalized by white trash
who have not produced a single line worth reading.
*
When an Armenian asserts himself as an expert
on any given subject he also anoints himself
as infallible as the Pope of Rome
and as magnificent as Suleiman
and he demands unconditional surrender from all his adversaries.
*
I have had so many sinister encounters with ugly Armenians
that it is no exaggeration to say that
I now trust an Armenian as much as I trust a Turk.
*
Our ancestors lived and survived 600 years
under the Turks. I doubt if I could survive 6 seconds
in the proximity of an ugly Armenian.
And if you were to say "You are yourself an ugly Armenian!"
I would reply: That only reinforces my position
by adding one more name to the list of our uglies.
*
I am personally acquainted with a noted Armenian-American poet
who after visiting Turkey
found Turks more congenial companions than his fellow Armenians.

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, December 01, 2002
********************************
If I am ever awarded an Armenian prize
I will say: "I accept the cash but I reject the honor."
The trouble with our organizations
(and the bosses, bishops and benefactors who control them)
is that they are interested in art
and I am interested only in money.
*
A historian who enjoys the support of a political party
with a specific agenda can't be right.
If his facts are right,
his selection of them is bound to be wrong.
*
"Because he is a bad writer, we can insult him."
Yes, but even our good writers were insulted as well as
betrayed, ignored, starved, and shot.
Are we to assume that we no longer have hooligans
or, if we do, they have all seen the light?
And since when hooligans can tell the difference
between a good and a bad writer?
*
To beg for favors is not to pray.
If you believe in God and if you have a friend in Him,
what else could you possibly want?
*
Advice to a young Armenian writer:
"Treat your friends with the same degree
of tolerance, understanding and compassion
as you would treat your Turkish enemies
and you will never be disappointed."
*
Before you define such words as
patriotism, idealism, faith and religion, ask yourself:
What if your enemy defines them the same way?
*
If you list 1000 facts in your favor,
your enemy is sure to cite 1001st fact
that may question the integrity of your case.
*
I expose contradictions in our power structures,
and my critics (if you will forgive the overstatement)
expose contradictions in me and in doing so
they think they have solved all our problems.
*
A short list of unemployable misfits:
An amputated ballet dancer,
a deaf music critic,
a blind taxi driver,
an honest politician,
an Armenian writer….
*
"I don't agree with you!"
"That’s good news indeed.
On the day you agree with me
I will have reason to worry about my sanity."

[ara baliozian]

Monday, December 02, 2002
********************************
What if we are driven not by a thirst for truth
and more by a trauma?
*
If you identify yourself with a movement or group,
can you still speak for yourself?
*
Was the Roman Empire right?
The Jews did not think so, they resisted,
and they are still paying a heavy price.
Was the Ottoman Empire just?
We did not think so and we paid a heavy price.
Is America right?
It depends whether or not we reply
with our intestines or brains.
*
My job: to call the corrupt corrupt,
the dupe dupe,
and the fool fool.
Obviously, not as profitable an enterprise as selling Oriental rugs.
*
Charlatanism: how to disguise concern for number one
as concern for number two.
*
The worst thing that can be said about a man:
"He is incapable of doing and saying anything
against his own interests."
*
To be an Armenian means to be at war on three fronts:
Turkish hostility,
world apathy, and
Armenian envy.
*
I am not dangerous,
only the particles of truth in what I say are – though
not as dangerous as the lies they expose.
*
I am not here to enlighten and educate our hooligans.
Hooligans are beyond education.
That’s because what shapes them is not knowledge but power,
and as long as they enjoy the support of the establishment
they will remain beyond the range of common sense and decency.

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, December 03, 2002
*******************************
Hannah Arendt on the Holocaust:
"If the Jewish people had really been unorganized and leaderless,
there would have been chaos and plenty of misery,
but the total number of victims would hardly have been
between 4,500,000 and 6,000,000 people."
*
General Antranik on the Genocide:
"The blood of 1,500,000 Armenians has been shed,
the blood of children and old men,
the blood of sons and violated daughters.
Where there is a sin,
we must search for the sinner.
We must tie the guilt to the guilty
and the crime to the criminal.
If I am not the sinner, who is?
He must be found and crucified.
Who is the sinner?"
*
General Antranik on our revolutionaries:
" Gravediggers of the Armenian people, Janissaries!"
*
We initiate fresh feuds even as we discuss stale ones.
*
Once upon a time there was a hunter
who took aim at an eagle and missed.
So he returned home and shot a chicken in his backyard.
Isn't that what we do when we insult one another
in an effort to settle our scores
against the Turks and the world?
*
What is more Armenian:
our feuds or the struggle to end them?
*
Arguing with those who speak in the name of God
amounts to arguing against God.
It can't be done.
*
If you can't question the fact,
criticize the context;
if you can't criticize the context,
attack the semantics;
and if you can't do that either,
then insult, swear and curse.
That’s why it is impossible to shake a believer.
That is also why Plato considered Sophists as
his most dangerous enemies.
*
To join a party and to view the opposition as the source of all evil
must be an irresistible temptation to all simpleminded dupes.
*
The more insecure we are
the more we love those who agree with us
even when we are wrong,
and the more we hate those who disagree with us
even when they are right.
Insecure? I prefer the Turkish word "dabansez" –
without a base or foundation.
*
I gave up translating on the day I translated Zarian’s line:
"Armenians survive by cannibalizing one another."
*
On the day we stop learning,
there should be an obituary in the papers
announcing the death of a brain.

[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, December 04, 2002
********************************
As a boy in Greece I was taught to believe that
the 19th-century Greek War of Independence
against the Ottoman Empire was conducted
by heroic men whose monuments
still adorn Athenian parks and squares.
Much later and after reading non-Greek sources
I discovered that these so-called heroes had been
badly organized bands of pirates and cutthroats.
*
History is made by riffraff and written by dupes.
After an interview with Hitler, Toynbee stated:
"I am now convinced that Herr Hitler wants peace."
*
"Martin Luther was a horrible man
who abandoned the Church because of a whore,"
I was told as a boy by a Catholic priest.
He spoke with such conviction that
I never doubted his honesty.
I still don't. I continue to think that
he believed every word he said
because he too never doubted or questioned his source.
*
Suppose the Turks were to vanish
from the face of the earth tomorrow, what then?
A good plot for an Armenian science fiction writer.
For one thing our scribblers and ghazetajis
would run out of things to write about
and go out of business.
*
Solving problems is easy.
The real difficult is in their implementation.
Because there are always people who survive
by pretending these problems are very complex
and it may take one or two generations….
*
How do you convince a man not to be a dupe,
especially a dupe with a messianic ego
who is out to convert you?
*
If you love your enemy and if he happens to be an Armenian,
he will hate you even more.
*
The astonishing ease with which
Armenians give up in disgust and fall silent;
and the cunning of our riffraff who fully aware of this fact
do their utmost to make themselves repellent.

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, December 05, 2002
********************************
It’s easy writing about events,
much more difficult establishing their causes.
Which is why the past is one
but every historian has his own version of it.
*
One should not deliver a lecture against exhibitionism
with a bare ass.
*
"Do not reason with a fool, an ass or a wall."
I am almost sure I first came across this piece of valuable advice
in the Old Testament somewhere…or perhaps in a dream.
*
Even when I write about myself
some readers accuse me of writing about them.
Once upon a time I too believed everything I was told
and insulted far better men than myself
when they dared to contradict me.
Even when I write against charlatans, dupes and riffraff
I write against myself.
*
One reaches truth only after rejecting many errors.
To be born with the truth in one’s soul
is a privilege only of prophets and messiahs.
*
I am not superstitious, neither am I a mouse,
but I hate it when a black cat crosses my path.
*
An honest skeptic is worth a thousand believers.
*
When an Armenian flatters me,
I think of the French saying,
"He who can kiss can bite,"
and I am seldom disappointed.
*
An Armenian poetess once told me:
"When Armenian villagers saw the Turks approaching,
they ran away but to make their escape good,
they left their daughters behind."
Since she was too young to have witnessed this herself,
I assume her source had been either a mother or a grandmother
with a score to settle against men and their cowardice.

[ara baliozian]

Saturday, December 07, 2002
*******************************
When General Antranik called some Armenians "gravediggers"
he didn't have the victims in mind;
and when Zarian called Armenians "cannibals"
he didn't have the alienated and assimilated in mind.
You may now guess who qualifies as gravedigger or cannibal.
May I make a suggestion?…
*
All scumbags share this in common:
they feel the need to assert moral superiority.
Not to achieve it but to assert it.
*
We are all products of different environments,
conditions and experiences. So that, the chances are,
where there is agreement
there will also be some degree of misunderstanding and distortion.
*
"God preserve me from the man I trust.
From the one I mistrust I can defend myself."
*
"There is no spectacle more agreeable
than to observe an old friend fall from a rooftop."
*
It must be reassuring to find the truth
in a single book, pundit or leader – make it führer!
*
"Thou shalt not kill."
Is it conceivable that there was a time
when men were such bloodthirsty barbarians
that they had to be told this?
*
The tendency of the mediocre to seek an audience of fools.
*
He is such an incurable dupe that
he is impressed even by his own erudition and brilliance.
*
An Armenian criticizing the West
reminds me of a bag lady delivering a lecture on fashion
at the House of Dior in Paris.
Before we criticize anyone,
let us take a closer look at our own
Ottomanized and Sovietized institutions.
*
There are some men so consistently wrong
that when they agree with you
you seriously consider revising your thinking.
*
"Love is blind but marriage restores the sight."
*
Those who pretend not to know the past
will also pretend they are not repeating it.

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, December 08, 2002
*****************************
To trust the future of the Homeland
into the hands of Diasporan Armenians
amounts to saying a bordello madam
is qualified to run a nunnery.
What have we in the Diaspora done
to prevent the gradual fragmentation,
disintegration and prostitution of the Diaspora?
And if the Homeland and the Diaspora are interdependent,
what makes us think that our leaders here
are more concerned about the future of the Homeland than
their leaders there?
*
He who is engaged in digging his own grave
should not brag about his genius for survival.
*
If the Turks are ever coerced into admitting responsibility
for the Genocide, they will never forgive us for coercing them.
*
If you are toothless, don't try to eat nuts.
This piece of advice has many applications and variations.
Examples:
If you are a fool,
don't pretend to understand the thoughts of wise men.
If you are a sheep among wolves, don't pretend to be a lion.
*
By systematically exterminating our ablest men,
our enemies allowed the riffraff to fill the void.
Some Armenians know this.
Others pretend not to know it.
And then there are the dupes whose unspoken slogan is:
"Our riffraff, right or wrong."
*
Let’s speak about the East and West.
Subtract British influence from India
and you end up with a bordello of maharajas.
Subtract Marxism from China
and you have a hornet’s nest of warlords.
Subtract American influence from Japan
and you have a totalitarian power structure
with a nonentity at the top pretending to be god.
Subtract Kemal’s infatuation with the West from Turkey
and you end up with a dung heap of sultans, *****s and mullahs.
East minus West equals an anachronistic nightmare.
*
The advantages of rewriting history are many
and all of them consist in flattering the egos of liars and charlatans.

[ara baliozian]

Monday, December 09, 2002
********************************
If you question the authority of old men,
you will be accused of corrupting the young.
*
I have yet to meet an honest Armenian
who was not alienated
and a holier-than-thou patriot
who was not a charlatan.
*
He who looks up to men of action
will look down at men of thought
even if they think the right thoughts
and will look up at men of action
even when they perform the wrong deeds.
*
No one wants advice – only corroboration.
No one wants corroboration – only collaboration.
No one wants collaboration – only subservience.
*
Everyone has his way of judging nations.
I judge them by the manner in which they treat their writers.
A nation that kills its dissidents is a nation of executioners,
and a nation that silences its critics is no better.
*
Every Armenian is either a traitor or an enemy
in the eyes of another Armenian,
and when I say enemy
I mean one who does not deserve to live.
*
A good Armenian is as good as gold
but a bad Armenian is horrid.
The trouble is, with most Armenians
it’s not always easy to tell the good from the bad
and sometimes on closer inspection the good
turn out to be horrid.
*
Why is it that those who preach love,
prefer to practice hate?

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, December 10, 2002
***************************
In the Ottoman Empire and in the USSR
we were brought up to fear authority,
to be subservient.
Perhaps one of the most important functions
of an Armenian writer today is to remind his readers that
they no longer live in the Ottoman Empire and the USSR,
and their leaders are neither sultans nor commissars
but public servants.
*
The Armenian bully who insults,
intimidates and threatens in defense of Armenianism
(whatever that may mean)
is a typical symptom of Ottomanism or Sovietism.
And if you were to say,
"You too do your own share of insulting,"
I will say (a) I have at no time asserted
to being an exception to any rule, and
I am in the business of exposing contradictions.
Those who feel exposed will inevitably also feel insulted,
perhaps even threatened, not by my words
but by reality – the reality of being unmasked
as loud-mouth charlatans and Turkish gypsies.
*
From the Turks we have learned
the art of massacre – if not real than verbal.
*
The two most popular solutions to all our problems:
emigration and assimilation.
*
It makes no sense to say that the Turks massacred
our women and children because they were a threat
to their security or territorial integrity.
I suggest they massacred out of pure hatred – 600 years
of silent, accumulated hatred.
*
The best revenge against someone
who calls you an idiot is not to call him
an idiot – that would be repetitive, redundant,
infantile and predictable – but to wait
until someone else calls him an inbred moron, white trash,
a lowlife and a scumbag…and if he happens to be an Armenian
you may not have to wait too long.

[ara baliozian]

ODIAN
***********************
It is such a pity that Armenians
who are qualified to run the Homeland
waste most of their time chattering on the internet.
*
If you are crucified and rise on the third day,
you are sure to run across an Armenian who will say,
"So why didn't you rise on the second day?"
*
Arpiar Arpiarian: "Armenians excel in staging splendid funerals."
*
If you want to read about
Armenian terrorists terrorizing Armenians,
Armenian assassins assassinating Armenians,
Armenian informers spying on Armenians
and reporting to the Ottoman police,
and Armenian embezzlers pocketing funds
collected for victims of Turkish massacres,
read Yervant Odian’s TWELVE YEARS OUTSIDE CONSTANTINOPLE: PERSONAL
MEMOIRS -- 1896-1908 (Istanbul, 1922).
*
What happened to the children and grandchildren
of these terrorists, assassins, spies and embezzlers?
I suspect they are the very same Armenians
who pretend to foam at the mouth
whenever anyone assumes a critical stance.
That’s their way of overcompensating
or expiating the sins of their fathers and grandfathers.
*
Before being condemned to death
French collaborators like Petain (a hero of World War I)
and Laval pleaded not guilty on grounds of patriotism.
Their line of reasoning: they had collaborating with the Nazis
out of love of their homeland.
If they had not collaborated,
the fate of France would have been much worse.
*
Not being honest is one thing,
but hating those who dare to be honest is a sure symptom of fear.
*
Again and again I am reminded that
our shortcomings are universal.
Yes, of course they are.
But we are also losers who pretend to be
morally and intellectually superior.

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, December 12, 2002
**********************************
Overheard on Canadian radio:
"As a Catholic I was not encouraged to read the Bible
without the guidance of…a child molester."
*
If you write against murderers
(and we have our share of them),
one of our charlatans is sure to take it upon himself
to remind you that murder is a universal problem;
and if he is an anti-Semite
(and we have our share of them too)
he will also remind you that the first murderer was Jew;
murder is therefore a Jewish invention – one more reason
to hate Jews, Zionists, Israel and that Nazi bastard Sharon.
*
Patriotism has produced more humbugs than any other ism.
*
You can prove a charlatan wrong
but you cannot make him admit it – that would be like
revoking his license.
*
According to an American: "The world may not like us
but they sure love our women."
*
"It’s a waste of time writing for Armenians,"
a good friend (an American career diplomat
and himself the author of several books)
reminds me once in a while.
But I don't write for Armenians or Turks or Hottentots.
I write for human beings (we have our share of them)
and against charlatans (ditto).
*
If you write against charlatans, they will hate you,
and even as they hate you
they will accuse you of being full of hate.
*
If a charlatan doesn't have a good reason to hate you
he will hate you for a bad reason.
He will hate you if you refuse to share his hatred of Jews
or his love for Stalin, Saddam or Bin Laden.
He will hate you even more if you refuse to be taken in
by his charlatanism.
*
Prove a charlatan wrong and make an enemy for life.
*
Patriotism and dissent are not incompatible concepts.
If patriotism meant subservience,
in what way Armenianism would be different from
Ottomanism or Sovietism?

[sen_Vahan]

Dear Ara,

These last posts make me think that they serve as answers to the latest "hot" thread about armenian xenophobia. They really explain what we are in practice. Recently a new student here asked me to explain what the decoherence in molecules is. I tried to do that somehow but saw some difficulty to be understood. Then I turned to armenians and started to give examples of decoherence (a very fast one!) among our people and their thoughts. She got me As you see, the thread was soon "converted" to personal insults although some coherence might be able to happen.
Ed khelkov el uzum enk inch vor bani hasnel...

[ara baliozian]

Friday, December 13, 2002
****************************
The problem with me is that
I have so many problems that
I don't know where to begin.
But if you think about it,
it makes perfect sense.
I am after all the product of six centuries
of subservience to one of the most brutal
and backward empires in the history of mankind.
I am short-tempered, vindictive, cowardly,
cunning and merciless towards inferiors --
mostly stray pet dogs and cats.
As an Orthodox coward I value a dishonorable survival
above a heroic death – which means
I have already died ten thousand deaths.
Notwithstanding my cunning
I have been taken in by imbeciles
who knew their business about which I knew nothing
but I thought I did.
You find all this rather depressing?
Don’ think it’s a joyride for me, my friend.
You are only reading it.
I live with it every day, hour and minute of my life.
*
Following the Ottoman Bank caper in Istanbul,
writes Yervant Odian in his memoirs,
Armenians who somehow managed to avoid
being massacred by enraged Turkish mobs
escaped to Greece where the Greek government
gave them food and shelter in a suburb of Athens
not far from the ghetto in which I grew up.
But before long, these Armenian refugees
"engaged in murder and larceny."
By way of consolation to our
holier-than-thou chauvinist charlatans,
I am more than willing to concede that
these Armenian murderers and thieves
were not their ancestors but mine.

[ara baliozian]

Saturday, December 14, 2002
********************************
While in Alexandria, writes Odian,
he met many impostors pretending to be
Ottoman Bank heroes.
"In two years their number had reached
the two hundred mark," he writes.
Speaking of another notorious hero, he adds:
"For a while we had two of them
each accusing the other of being an impostor,
until the real one showed up…."
*
You may have noticed by now that
the rate of survival among our heroes is higher
than that of our anonymous common folk.
*
A genius among Armenians is like a Napoleon
in an asylum full of gods.
*
I loathe deceivers as much as I loathe dupes
who are dupes because they use only a fraction of their brains.
You never see a two-legged man hopping around on one leg,
but the world is full of mental cripples.
*
There is a type of writing that says
"I am smart.
I am smarter than you.
I am smarter than anyone else!"
But between the lines it says
the exact opposite – "I am a fool.
I am a damn fool.
I am a loud-mouth nuisance."