"The Greeks were different. They had a passion for order and symmetry, much like the Romans, but they knew how foolish it was to deny the unseen world, the old gods. Emotion, darkness, barbarism. He looked at the ceiling for a moment, his face almost troubled. 'Do you remember what we were speaking of earlier, of how bloody, terrible things are sometimes the most beautiful? he said. 'It's a very Greek idea, and a very profound one. Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it. And what could be more terrifying and beautiful, to souls like the Greeks or our own, than to lose control completely? To throw off the chains of being for an instant, to shatter the accident of our mortal selves? Euripides speaks of the Maenads: head thrownback, throat to the stars, "more like deer than human being." To be absolutely free! One is quite capable, of course, of working out these destructive passions in more vulgar and less efficient ways. But how glorious to release them in a single burst! To sing, to scream, to dance barefoot in the woods in the dead of night, with no more awareness of mortality than an animal! These are powerful mysteries. The bellowing of bulls. Springs of honey bubbling from the ground. If we are strong enough in our souls we can rip away the veil and look that naked, terrible beauty right in the face; let God consume us, devour us, unstring our bones. Then spit us out reborn."
Sayfa 45Kitabı okudu
“Repeated failure will toughen your spirit and show you with absolute clarity how things must be done.”
Sayfa 162Kitabı okudu
If you care about something enough, it's going to make you cry. But you have to use it. Use your tears. Use your pain.
Sayfa 144Kitabı okudu
To me, Man is a machine, made up of many mechanisms, the moral ones acting automatically in accordence with the impulses of an interior Master who is built out of born-temperament and an accumulation of multitudinous outside influences and trainings; a machine whose one function is to secure the spiritual contentment of the Master, be his desires good or be they evil; a machine whose Will is absolute and must be obeyed, and always is obeyed.
Sayfa 101Kitabı okudu
“When hosted the New York Public Library conversations, he would asks his guests for a seven-word autobiography. My absolute favorite response remains Joan Didion’s —
‘Seven words do not yet define me.’”
(Ave atque vale)
“New York Halk Kütüphanesi konuşmalarına ev sahipliği yaptığında, misafirlerinden yedi kelimelik bir otobiyografi isterdi. En sevdiğim yanıt Joan Didion'un -
"Yedi kelime henüz beni tanımlamıyor."
This is summary of the time being absolutely...
You will get used to it.
