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“From that first meeting he had loved this woman, but passionately as his feelings surged over him, following him even to his dreams, the crucial factor that would shake him to the core was still lacking - his conscious realization that what, denying his true feelings, he still called admiration, respect and devotion was in fact love - a burning, unbounded, absolute and passionate love. Some kind of servile instinct in him forcibly suppressed that realization; she was too distant, too far away, too high above him, a radiant woman surrounded by a circle of stars, armoured by her wealth and by all that he had ever known of women before. It would have seemed blasphemous to think of her as a sexual being, subject to the same laws of the blood as the few other women who had come his way during his youth spent in servitude [...]. No, this was different. She shone down from another sphere, beyond desire, pure and inviolable, and even in his most passionate dreams he did not venture so far as to undress her. In boyish confusion, he loved the fragrance of her presence, appreciating all her movements as if they were music, glad of her confidence in him and always fearing to show her any of the overwhelming emotion that stirred within him, an emotion still without a name, but long since fully formed and glowing in its place of concealment.

But love truly becomes love only when, no longer an embryo developing painfully in the darkness of the body, it ventures to confess itself with lips and breath. However hard it tries to remain a chrysalis, a time comes when the intricate tissue of the cocoon tears, and out it falls, dropping from the heights to the farthest depths, falling with redoubled force into the startled heart.”
― Stefan Zweig, Journey into the Past

“How To Make A Human

Take the cat out of the sphinx
and what is left? Riddle Me That.

Take the horse from the centaur
and you take away the sleek grace,
the strength of harnessed power.
What is left can still run across fields,
after a fashion, but is easily winded;
what is left will therefore erect buildings
to divide the open plains so he no longer
must face the wide expanse where once
his equine legs raced the winds
and, sometimes, won.

Take the bull from the Minotaur
but what is left will still assemble
a herd for the sake of ruling over it.
What is left will kill for sport,
in an arena thronged with spectators
shouting "Ole" at each deadly thrust.

Take the fish from the Merman:
What is left can still swim,
if only with lots of splashing; gone
is the sleek sliding through the waves,
alert to the subtle changes in the current.
What is left will build ships
so he can cross the oceans without
getting his feet wet, what is left won't care
if his boats pollute the seas he can no
longer breathe so long as their passage
can keep him from sinking.

Take the goat from the satyr
but what is left will dance out of reach
before you have the chance
to get that Dionysian streak of myschief,
the love of music and wine, the rutting parts
that like to party all the day through.
What is left will still be stubborn and refuse
to give way; what is left will lock horns
and butt heads with anyone who challenges him.

Take the bird from the harpy,
but the memory of flying, a constant yearning ache for skies so tantalizingly distant,
will still remain, as will the established pecking orders, the bitter squabbling over food and territory, and the magpie eye that lusts for shining objects.
What is left will cut down the whole forest
to feather his sprawling urban nest.

At the end of these operations,
tell me: what is left? The answer: Man, a creature divorced from nature,
who's forgotten where he came from.”
― Lawrence Schimel

“Arianna simply wasn’t up to it. She had a pretty voice, she could carry a tune—that was never a problem. But she had no depth. She couldn’t interpret a song, place her stamp on it. Unlike Lesley, who fairly stomped on it! And that’s what you need in folk music. These are songs that have been around for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. They existed for centuries before any kind of recording was possible, even before people could write, for god’s sake! So the only way those songs lived and got passed on was by singers. The better singer you were, the more likely it was people were going to turn out to hear you and remember you—and remember the song—whether it was at a pub or wedding or ceilidh or just a knot of people seeking shelter under a tree during a storm. It’s a kind of time machine, really, the way you can trace a song from whoever’s singing it now back through the years—Dylan or Johnny Cash, Joanna Newsom or Vashti Bunyan—on through all those nameless folk who kept it alive a thousand years ago. People talk about carrying the torch, but I always think of that man they found in the ice up in the Alps. He’d been under the snow for 1,200 years, and when they discovered him, he was still wearing his clothes, a cloak of woven grass and a bearskin cap, and in his pocket they found a little bag of grass and tinder and a bit of dead coal. That was the live spark he’d been carrying, the bright ember he kept in his pocket to start a fire whenever he stopped. You’d have to be so careful, more careful than we can even imagine, to keep that one spark alive. Because that’s what kept you alive, in the cold and the dark. Folk music is like that. And by folk I mean whatever music it is that you love, whatever music it is that sustains you. It’s the spark that keeps us alive in the cold and night, the fire we all gather in front of so we know we’re not alone in the dark. And the longer I live, the colder and darker it gets. A song like “Windhover Morn” can keep your heart beating when the doctors can’t. You might laugh at that, but it’s true.”
― Elizabeth Hand, Wylding Hall

“Gratitude without practicing maybe like practicing a faith without good work. A grateful heart is not enough without a grateful habit; because your joy is not produced by what you put in your heart but by habit you put in your life.”
― Patience Johnson, Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder

“If you ask me I think the greatest breakthrough each and everyone of us need is not on finance, marriage, work, relationship, own house, car but self. The first breakthrough should start from being selfish.”
― Patience Johnson, Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder

“If negative emotions have gain access into your heart, it is because you have given it attention. If memories of pain and hurt dominates your heart, it is because you gave them attention. How can a memory hurt you when it has only happened? It can only hurt you when you give it attention.”
― Patience Johnson, Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder

“The open door is never behind you; the open door is always before you. Quit looking at your past life and mistakes. Look unto Jesus who is the Author and Perfector of our faith. Your open door is not in the opportunity you missed ten years ago, it is not in some stuffs behind you that you can't get back. You can't gain your access by giving attention to your past life.
Your past days are behind you and what God has for you is in front of you. Just pay attention.”
― Patience Johnson, Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder

“None of this made any sense to Benjamin, however hard he tried. Roll-Up Reg was talking another language. But then, he was no more persuaded by the things his parents told him, or the teachers at school. It was the world, the world itself that was beyond his reach, this whole absurdly vast, complex, random, measureless construct, this never-ending ebb and flow of human relations, political relations, cultures, histories . . . How could anyone hope to master such things? It was not like music. Music always made sense. The music he heard that night was lucid, knowable, full of intelligence and humour, wistfulness and energy and hope. He would never understand the world, but he would always love this music.”
― Jonathan Coe, The Rotters' Club

“A dragon is a confusion at the heart of things, a law unto himself. He embraces good, evil, and indifference; in his own nature he makes them indivisible and absolute. He knows who he is. Surely you see that... Put it this way. Dragons all love life's finer things- music, art, treasure- the works of the spirit; yet in their personal habits they're foul and bestial- they burn down cathedrals, for instance, and eat maidens- and they see in their whimsical activities no faintest contradiction... Dragons never grow, never change... Believe me, nothing in this world is more despicable than a dragon. They're a walking- or flying- condemnation of all we stand for, all we pray for our children, nay, for ourselves. We struggle to improve ourselves, we tortuously balance on the delicate line between our duties to society and our duties within- our duties to God and our own nature.”
― John Gardner, In the Suicide Mountains

“Tristan was the soundtrack of my summer. The beat I walked to. The melody I breathed in and out. The lyrics I lived by.”
― Jessica Brody, A Week of Mondays

“Best of all, she had Park's songs in her head - and in her chest, somehow.”
― Rainbow Rowell, Eleanor & Park

“All the men in Daddy's records sang of love with drastically imbalanced emotion. In the span of three minutes, they begged for it and kicked it to the curb. They turned to anybody, even to God, with a perpetual request: Please send me someone to love. But once they got it, love scrambled them.”
― Rashod Ollison, Soul Serenade: Rhythm, Blues & Coming of Age Through Vinyl

“Gustav is a composer. For months he has been carrying on a raging debate with Säure over who is better, Beethoven or Rossini. Säure is for Rossini. “I’m not so much for Beethoven qua Beethoven,” Gustav argues, “but as he represents the German dialectic, the incorporation of more and more notes into the scale, culminating with dodecaphonic democracy, where all notes get an equal hearing. Beethoven was one of the architects of musical freedom—he submitted to the demands of history, despite his deafness. While Rossini was retiring at the age of 36, womanizing and getting fat, Beethoven was living a life filled with tragedy and grandeur.” “So?” is Säure’s customary answer to that one. “Which would you rather do? The point is,” cutting off Gustav’s usually indignant scream, “a person feels good listening to Rossini. All you feel like listening to Beethoven is going out and invading Poland. Ode to Joy indeed. The man didn’t even have a sense of humor. I tell you,” shaking his skinny old fist, “there is more of the Sublime in the snare-drum part to La Gazza Ladra than in the whole Ninth Symphony. With Rossini, the whole point is that lovers always get together, isolation is overcome, and like it or not that is the one great centripetal movement of the World. Through the machineries of greed, pettiness, and the abuse of power, love occurs. All the shit is transmuted to gold. The walls are breached, the balconies are scaled—listen!” It was a night in early May, and the final bombardment of Berlin was in progress. Säure had to shout his head off. “The Italian girl is in Algiers, the Barber’s in the crockery, the magpie’s stealing everything in sight! The World is rushing together.”
― Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow

“We love to learn because learning feels good. It both satisfies and stimulates curiosity. Reading a good book, having a meaningful conversation, listening to great music—just doing these things make us happy. They have no extrinsic purpose. To give them one takes away from their joy.”
― Zander Sherman, The Curiosity of School: Education and the Dark Side of Enlightenment

“Baby, you must dance to the music of your soul!”
― Lailah Gifty Akita, Think Great: Be Great!

“Angel, you got checkout girls in these here grocery stores cain’t feed their own kids right, jazz musicians workin’ for the post office because music don’t pay the charge of admission to a nightclub. You might love your work but one day you wake up and find that your work don’t love you.”
― Walter Mosley, The Further Tales of Tempest Landry

“It was so late and she’d be sleeping
He came through her home town
With the moonlight on the crossroads
And the green light shining down
And the bell at the railroad crossing
And the horn from far away
And his Silver Eagle passing
Half a mile from where she lay

At his feet a sea of faces
Make devotions with their love
Clap their hands and plead their cases
Call for blessings from above
Like the rolling waves forever massing
To crash and foam and creep away
And the Silver Eagle passing
Half a mile from where she lay

Road signs flow into the headlights
Whisper names and fall behind
He finds some honor in the darkness
Hopes for grace and peace of mind
And he thinks of how they’d lay together
He’d run his fingers through her hair
And he wonders if she’ll ever
Come to know that he was there”
― Mark Knopfler

“I had better come clean now and say that I do not believe that art (all art) and beauty are ever separate, nor do I believe that either art or beauty are optional in a sane society."

"That puts me on the side of what Harold Bloom calls 'the ecstasy of the privileged moment. Art, all art, as insight, as transformation, as joy. Unlike Harold Bloom, I really believe that human beings can be taught to love what they do not love already and that the privileged moment exists for all of us, if we let it. Letting art is the paradox of active surrender. I have to work for art if I want art to work on me." (...)

We know that the universe is infinite, expanding and strangely complete, that it lacks nothing we need, but in spite of that knowledge, the tragic paradigm of human life is lack, loss, finality, a primitive doomsaying that has not been repealed by technology or medical science. The arts stand in the way of this doomsaying. Art objects. The nouns become an active force not a collector's item. Art objects.

"The cave wall paintings at Lascaux, the Sistine Chapel ceiling, the huge truth of a Picasso, the quieter truth of Vanessa Bell, are part of the art that objects to the lie against life, against the spirit, that is pointless and mean. The message colored through time is not lack, but abundance. Not silence but many voices. Art, all art, is the communication cord that cannot be snapped by indifference or disaster. Against the daily death it does not die."

"Naked I came into the world, but brush strokes cover me, language raises me, music rhythms me. Art is my rod and my staff, my resting place and shield, and not mine only, for art leaves nobody out. Even those from whom art has been stolen away by tyranny, by poverty, begin to make it again. If the arts did not exist, at every moment, someone would begin to create them, in song, out of dust and mud, and although the artifacts might be destroyed, the energy that creates them is not destroyed. If, in the comfortable West, we have chosen to treat such energies with scepticism and contempt, then so much the worse for us.

"Art is not a little bit of evolution that late-twentieth-century city dwellers can safely do without. Strictly, art does not belong to our evolutionary pattern at all. It has no biological necessity. Time taken up with it was time lost to hunting, gathering, mating, exploring, building, surviving, thriving. Odd then, that when routine physical threats to ourselves and our kind are no longer a reality, we say we have no time for art.

"If we say that art, all art is no longer relevant to our lives, then we might at least risk the question 'What has happened to our lives?”
― Jeanette Winterson, Art Objects: Essays on Ecstasy and Effrontery

“IRELAND
Spenserian Sonnet
abab, bcbc, cdcd, ee

What is it about the Kelly velvet hillsides and the hoary avocado sea,
The vertical cliffs where the Gulf Stream commences its southern bend,
Slashing like a sculptor gone mad or a rancorous God who’s angry,
Heaving galaxies of lichen shrouded stones for potato farmers to tend,
Where the Famine and the Troubles such haunting aspects lend,
Music and verse ring with such eloquence in their whimsical way,
Let all, who can hear, rejoice as singers’ intonations mend,
Gaelic souls from Sligo and Trinity Green to Cork and Dingle Bay,
Where fiddle, bodhran, tin whistle, and even God, indulge to play,
Ould sod to Beckett, Wilde and Yeats, Heaney and James Joyce,
In this verdant, welcoming land, ‘tis the poet who rules the day.
Where else can one hear a republic croon in so magnificent a voice?
Primal hearts of Celtic chieftains pulse, setting inspiration free,
In genial confines of chic caprice, we’re stirred by synchronicity.”
― David B. Lentz, Sonnets from New England: Love Songs