Andrew > Andrew's Quotes

“The theologian may indulge the pleasing task of describing Religion as she descended from Heaven, arrayed in her native purity. A more melancholy duty is imposed on the historian. He must discover the inevitable mixture of error and corruption which she contracted in a long residence upon Earth, among a weak and degenerate race of beings.”
― Edward Gibbons, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”
― Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species

“Sobre el mercado editorial, bueno, yo creo que es una estafa: un montón de analfabetos funcionales comprando libros de algunos necios. Lo que hoy se entiende por literatura o por mercado editorial es una estafa disfrazada de intenciones políticamente correctas. No tiene nada que ver con la literatura.”
― Roberto Bolaño

“2
Here is your inheritance:
to be a person and go on blushing, applauding,
saying “pardon me” without understanding
how it started, or stopping to ask;
believing somebody else knows;
not wanting to be alone.
Esoteric burlesque blossoming in mirrors, paraphernalia,
rainbows, dolorous sombreros, days.
The same presence everywhere. Look for it, it eludes you.
Not wanting to be the only one
with a small black coffin in your heart,
a small black coffin the size of a thumb
with nothing in it but wind.
For now, take this black rock and go on polishing it.
A golden cricket lives in it, listen;
a tiny blue loom.”
― Richard Cronshey, The Snow and the Snow

“4. Full Circle

Today I like the traffic jam.
The engine noises heard in detail.
My whole life, a river of thresholds, stitches itself together
and gazes at me
from everywhere.
I like these places where time kinks and looks back over its shoulder
at itself. It confuses them, who are used to being blurs.
But I’m alright here with my terror. I’m in no hurry.
I get paid by the hour.
I let anybody merge in front of me.
I know there’s nowhere to hide.”
― Richard Cronshey, The Snow and the Snow