The Origin of Birds in the Footprints of Writing Quotes

“There is a way of thinking that is a kind of madness. You look for signs and meaning in clouds and leaves and cards and license plates. And you find it, almost. The revelation is just a little past your reach, leading you on till you are trading secrets with a stranger in the elevator or a tree in the park. That is Magic Thinking. But Magic Realism says, ‘suppose it is true, just for a day, just for a page.’ The weird and magical happens, unexplained, turning everyday life into a mystery.”
― Raymond St. Elmo, The Origin of Birds in the Footprints of Writing

“Magical realism is a rain of flowers falling during a funeral, no one asking why. It is finding a dull reference to a non-existent country in an old encyclopedia, and then finding an explanation which leads to a further secret deeper in. It's a bridge bursting into fire after you cross. In pure form it is never explained, which means that just possibly it is not even unnatural.”
― Raymond St. Elmo, The Origin of Birds in the Footprints of Writing

“I like distributed systems. If just one person truly believes in the existence of something imaginary, he's an idiot. But when thousands of people even slightly believe, you get beautifully painted eggs hidden under bushes and quarters exchanged for loose teeth under your pillow.  You get Elvis presiding at weddings and cookie crumbs on the plate left for Santa each Christmas morning.”
― Raymond St. Elmo, The Origin of Birds in the Footprints of Writing

“What people call 'Artificial Intelligence' are two very different things. There is artificial reasoning, which is the
manipulation of concepts according to math-like rules. And then there is artificial personality, the act of making
a machine seem like a person. There are no rules for 'personality' except whatever trick works. Our artificial man
must do both; hence, Odradek-Dupin. One half of him thinks about the concepts of things, the other half chats
confidently about what he thinks.”
― Raymond St. Elmo, The Origin of Birds in the Footprints of Writing