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T.S. Eliot once wrote, “Immature poets borrow. Mature poets steal.”
I loathe examinations. They prove simply nothing, only that it is possible, after all, to mould another into the shape of one’s whims.
What shall I become that I have not already become? Do we create ourselves, or are we created?
Time is truly an illusion of the mind.
Had simply everyone rewritten history to suit his prejudices? Was most of it, perhaps all of it, a myth? If so, what was real?
In time of crisis it is better to do any intelligent thing quickly than to hesitate, searching for the ideal.
“I see only light, Daddo.” “Then I fear for you, my son. For a man who sees only light will stumble over the things that lie in shadows.” “Then does a man who looks only at shadows not also stumble, for lack of seeing light?”
I am sleeping on a mattress in his cabin, which is the most primitive shelter imaginable. I now understand why civilisation invariably evolves into concentrations of city dwellers. In the city one is surrounded by networks of efficiency. All human knowledge is accessible in its most convenient forms. But here! Alas, here the very idea of enlightened knowledge is suspect. Modern science is unknown. Things break down. Distances are vast, continental—no, cosmic! The seasons are tyrants who will not be denied. The virus and the bullet wield excessive authority.
“Apologize for what?” she replied in a deceptively quiet voice. “For your particular perspective on the truth? It is a habit of human beings to crystallize around themselves a lens through which they may safely view the experiences of life.”
“If there is murder in the heart, Stiofain, and blood on the hands, we must cleanse it with prayer and music and poems. If we do not . . .” He searched the boy’s eyes. “Stiofain, if I can wish for one thing, it’s that you hear me now. Don’t be flinging the wheat of your youth into the fire. Work it hard, grind your anger into flour, and some day, I promise you, we’ll be sitting down to feasts instead of funerals.” “Oh, Father,” the boy cried, “you are a fine spinner of words. But I am drowning in blood!”
He understood then what bear it would be his lot to wrestle with. Not blacks or grizzlies. But the one that struggled for mastery within his own being and had already been identified for him: fear.
“Such sweet compulsion doth in music lie”,
the lively sport of conversation.
We are starved for the unknown God. A few, like Stephen, will consume him in a sacrament. Others, like myself, are driven out into the waste places in search of his presence. That elusive presence that is neither here nor there but arrives, strangely, when we are becoming resigned to absence.
Perhaps there are places within us, places of true home, that do not yet exist and are carved from the stone of our hearts only by suffering. Perhaps. Who will tell me if this is true? For if it is not, then I am subject to the cruelest delusion of all. Yet, if I were to know, I would cease to be vulnerable, and I might make my home in exile.
Nothing’s ordinary when you really look at it.”
One of the things that haunts me as an artist is the way we project so much onto the world. I’m down on my luck, and the world looks a wretched place. I’m feeling prosperous, so I think the whole international scene is too. I’m unhappy, so I look around and all I see is unhappiness. I buy a certain brand of car, and suddenly I notice them everywhere. Or I’m in love and all I see is love, the whole world in love.”
“And there is more to life than . . .” “Than love? Tell me what’s more important than love?” “Truth.”
Objects being easier to destroy than human beings, it is necessary at times to turn human beings into objects.
“That’s life, Ash”, the boy called into his ear. “There ain’t no why, and there ain’t no answers.”
He came to love adversity as an unsentimental but beloved teacher.
Sex is class warfare. You must understand your weapon if you wish to emerge the victor from the struggle.”
the false self must die in order for the true self to be born.”
“People don’t always understand a lack of patriotism
“None of us hears properly”, he went on. “Every one of us is tied up in our inner noise.”
“There’s a dialogue between the self and the soul”, he said. “They aren’t enemies. More like two lenses trying to get in focus.”
I began to find it more important to forgive my enemy on the day I found out that I am my enemy.”
“Answers are temporary things, Anne”, he had said. “There will always be more questions.”
“Just be aware that rational answers aren’t necessarily what we’re looking for when we produce our questions.”
