Famous Quotes Ipsum

For as long as i can remember, i had been transparent to myself, unselfconscious, learning, doing, most of every day. now i was in my own way; i myself was a dark object i could not ignore. i couldn't remember how to forget myself. i didn't want to think about myself, to reckon myself in, to deal with myself every livelong minute on top of everything else - but swerve as i might, i couldn't avoid it. i was a boulder blocking my own path. i was a dog barking between my own ears, a barking dog who wouldn't hush. so this was adolescence..... think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy. in tereza's eyes, books were the emblems of a secret brotherhood. for she had but a single weapon against the world of crudity surrounding her: the books she took out of the municipal library, and above all, the novels. she had read any number of them, from fielding to thomas mann. they not only offered her the possibility of an imaginary escape from a life she found unsatisfying; they also had a meaning for her as physical objects: she loved to walk down the street with a book under her arm. it had the same significance for her as an elegant cane for the dandy a century ago. it differentiated her from the others. when power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. when power narrows the areas of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. when power corrupts, poetry cleanses, for art establishes the basic human truths which must serve as the touchstone of our judgement. words do not express thoughts very well. they always become a little different immediately after they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish. it takes two to speak truth - one to speak and another to hear. 'when i was a kid,' said irie softly, ringing the bell for their stop, 'i used to think they were little alibis. bus tickets. i mean, look: they've got the time. the date. the place. and if i was up in court, and i had to defend myself, and prove i wasn't where they said i was, doing what they said i did, when they said i did it, i'd pull out one of those.' sleeping is curiously addictive. you are part of the world, but not in it, and somehow that just seems right. it seems enough. by all accounts, sex is a personally encoded communique, continually reinvented. her guilty conscience was as vague as original sin. it's awfully hard to be b-b-brave when you are only a very small animal. be brave enough to live life creatively. the creative is the place where no one else has ever been. you have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. you can't get there by bus, only by hard work and risk and by not quite knowing what you're as the last leaf falls it only symbolizes the end of the tree's cycle, not the end of the tree's life. so too, as we complete our life cycle, there is a new beginning as our souls journey onward. we can't all, and some of us don't. that's all there is to it. the whole business is built on ego, vanity, self-satisfaction, and it's total crap to pretend it's not. we shall not cease from exploration - and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started - and know the place for the first time. the universe is made of stories, not atoms. doubt thou the stars are fine / doubt that the sun doth move / doubt truth be a liar / but never doubt i love. 'so i ran like the wind to the water "please don't leave me again" i cried. and i threw bitter tears at the ocean and all that came back was the tide. i have the sense to recognize / that i don't know how to let you go 'tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. a pain stabbed my heart as it did every time i saw a girl i loved who was going the opposite direction in this too-big world. it is curious how silly, trivial things, sometimes for no apparent reason, become significant. at first you laugh at these things, you think they are of no importance, you go on and you feel that you haven't got the strength to stop yourself... and so it seems to me that if i die, i shall take part in life one way or another..