Island of the World Quotes

“...life without coffee is not really life.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Island of the World

“Life without coffee is not really life.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Island of the World

“In this world are many people who do not master their bodies. Such people say that no one can tell them what to do, not even God, and they think that in this way they have no master. In the end they become slaves to anything.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Island of the World

“Words are gold, split and shared as coinage, small pebbles, emblems offered back and forth-given, received; given, received-expanding the vocabulary of the soul”
― Michael O'Brien, Island of the World: A Novel

“Love is the soul of the world, though its body bleeds, and we must learn to bleed with it. Love is also the seed and milk and the fruit of the world, though we can partake of it in greed or reverence. We are born, we eat, and learn, and die. We leave a tracery of messages in the lives of others, a little shifting of the soil, a stone moved from here to there, a word uttered, a song, a poem left behind. I was here, each of these declare. I was here.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Island of the World

“The mountains are intimations of transcendence, which he is now free to pursue, and the walking writes messages in every cell of his body, telling him that he is not locked inside a cement box, nor in a water drum, but is moving forward.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Island of the World

“Automobiles are unreliable and dangerous slaves. They frequently revolt and kill their masters. I hate them.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Island of the World

“We came to know that love is the soul of the world, though its body bleeds, and we must learn to bleed with it.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Island of the World

“So far beyond rational thought is your attitude, that nothing I can say will change it. A lifetime of reasoning with you would not alter your amazing inability to comprehend reality.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Island of the World

“The poet who sees himself as a hero or a prophet, or a priest of the socio-political forces to which he is loyal, which he believes are the historical necessities of his times, too easily becomes a puppet. He has no external measure with which to assess reality. Whether he submits to the forces or rejects them, he becomes a parody of himself, and then without knowing it submits his gifts to the demons of his era. He loses his place in the continuity of time. He becomes dependent on social affirmation and the drug of exalted feelings common to all revolutionaries. He destroys, even as he thinks he creates.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Island of the World

“[T]he reason why Shakespeare and Pushkin were great writers was because from the time when they were boys they stood like policemen over their thoughts and didn't allow one small insincerity to creep in.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Island of the World

“Words are gold, split and shared as coinage, small pebbles, emblems offered back and forth-given, received; given, received-expanding the vocabulary of the soul.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Island of the World

“Isn’t it a basic truth that we are brought to prayer only by passing through suffering?”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Island of the World: A Novel

“Culture is the last refuge, the sanctuary, the human place in the midst of the surrounding dehumanization. Through the arts man is able to know himself, even if only on the intuitive level. He senses his own worth, even when he cannot articulate it.” “Can a poem or a song defeat a tyrant?” Defeat a killer, defeat atrocities, defeat the bottom falling out of the universe when you least expect it? “Yes. Yes, it can, given enough time. When a work of art is both beautiful and true, man’s freedom is strengthened by it—both his interior need for freedom and his capacity to seek a rational understanding of it.” “You hope for a lot.” “Yes, I hope for it. And if I didn’t, I would die of despair.” “You are a person of extremes”, Josip says, not unkindly. “Am I? I suppose so. But which is more extreme, a man who desires to speak the truth in a season of lies or a tyrant who creates the lies that engulf an entire people?” Josip nods in agreement.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Island of the World: A Novel

“Look, Josip”, says the man of the sea. “Look at the wall.” With his one good foot he nudges Josip, pushing him gently, making him turn to face the opposite wall. The bar of light is climbing higher now. “Do you see?” Josip shakes his head. “Surely you see”, says the man. “I see the light, but the walls imprison it.” “The light has entered the prison. Nothing can keep it out.” “If there is no window, the light cannot enter.” “If there is no window, the light enters within you.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Island of the World: A Novel

“Marija, if we do not play in the dangerous surf, we will drown in puddles.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Island of the World: A Novel

“Culture is the last refuge, the sanctuary, the human place in the midst of the surrounding dehumanization. Through the arts man is able to know himself, even if only on the intuitive level. He senses his own worth, even when he cannot articulate it.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Island of the World: A Novel

“These honors that you give to me are not for me alone. They are for those who, dying young, now sleep in the earth with their unspoken poems, waiting for the Last Day.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Island of the World: A Novel

“to hide them. “A man is himself and no other”, Josip says. “He is an island in the sea of being. And each island is as no other. The islands are connected because they have come forth from the sea, and the sea flows between them. It separates them yet unites them, if they learn to swim.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Island of the World: A Novel

“Individual destiny is not produced machine-like from the “mills of the gods”. Nor are we characters in a morality play. We are works of art, each work distinct, each a phenomenon, the art laboring hand in hand with the Artist to create the story. We are inside a poem. No, we are the poem.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Island of the World: A Novel

“and arrogant, to tell people it is fine to poison themselves with chemicals and mutilate their bodies at the very sources of life, just so they can escape children! As if children could ever—ever—be a burden!”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Island of the World: A Novel

“Josip considers this a very good sign. Winston may be abandoning his habit of confusing data for wisdom.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Island of the World: A Novel

“Still, clothing is a language of respect, he reminds himself, a world of manners that is the basic level of human charity.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Island of the World

“Still, clothing is a language of respects, he reminds himself, a world of manners that is the basic level of human charity.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Island of the World

“Ne možemo jednostavno iz sjećanja izbrisati svoje osjećaje i duhovne rane - to se ljudskim snagama jedostavno ne može - iako se možemo disciplinirati i nepostupati u skladu s njima.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Island of the World

“Social pressure is the fascism of the democracies. Fascism is the democracy of the ruthless. Social engineering is the opiate of romantic intellectuals.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Island of the World

“eight, nine kilometers—more than halfway!”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Island of the World: A Novel