featherfinyipp, posts by tag: quotes - LiveJournal

"The calling of art is to extract us from our daily reality, to bring us to a hidden truth that's difficult to access - to a level that's not material but spiritual. That's what poetry and music do, and that was the first calling of religion. Religion works on some people but not on everyone, because it says, stop thinking and accept what I tell you. That's not valid for people who want to think and reflect. Art is a better way of achieving that, though the aim is the same."

Wise words from Abbas Kiarostami.

It feels like a night for staying up, for watching to see if the sunrise is worth capturing on camera, talking and reading and idling the hours away. But travel and sleep pull at my body and for once I just don't want caffeine.

Tomorrow, tomorrow. Some will rest, some eat chocolate, some will worship, others will just appreciate the day off. Some will feel vaguely confused and wonder what they think, but not me. No, I've got it all tidily worked out - the hours of thought, the alternative options - been there, done that. Tried it all. Got the T-shirt, thankyouverymuch. I suppose a week or so submerged in the Catholic undertones of my Irish family's town naturally reiterates the atheism I admitted and committed to three years ago.

I'll close with some (translated) words from Sartre, from Huis Clos/In Camera/No Exit first repeated to me by airlight who knew her audience well.

"GARCIN: I "dreamt," you say. It was no dream. When I chose the hardest path, I made my choice deliberately. A man is what he wills himself to be.

INEZ: Prove it. Prove it was no dream. It's what one does, and nothing else, that shows the stuff one's made of.

GARCIN: I died too soon. I wasn't allowed time to--to do my deeds.

INEZ: One always dies too soon--or too late. And yet one's whole life is complete at that moment, with a line drawn neatly under it, ready for the summing up. You are--your life, and nothing else."

And if that's not an encouraging Easter message, I don't know what is.

"'I don't understand how you find the time to pursue so many things to a fairly geeky level.' To which I could only say I don't understand what everyone else does with their time."

"It is a lonely idea, a lonely condition, so terrifying to think of that we usually don't. And so we talk to each other, call each other, call each other short and long distance across land and sea, clasp hands with each other at meeting and at parting, fight each other and even destroy each other because of this always somewhat thwarted effort to break through walls to each other. As a character in a play once said, 'We're all of us sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins'. Personal lyricism is the outcry of prisoner to prisoner from the cell in solitary where each is confined for the duration of his life."

Tennessee Williams prefaced his play, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with an essay entitled Person - to - Person. The above quote is taken from it. I first read it about three years ago and it still resonates.

Why does one feel so different at night? Why is it so exciting to be awake when everybody else is asleep? Late–it is very late! And yet every moment you feel more and more wakeful, as though you were slowly, almost with every breath, waking up into a new, wonderful, far more thrilling and exciting world than the daylight one. And what is this queer sensation that you're a conspirator? Lightly, stealthily you move about your room. You take something off the dressing-table and put it down again without a sound. And everything, even the bed-post, knows you, responds, shares your secret. . . .

--from 'At The Bay' by Katherine Mansfield

Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

I still don't have any internet in my house, although the wireless router arrived today. Hopefully it should be up and running by Thursday and I shall return to cyberspace.

"Alas! 'Frailty thy name is Genius!' What is become of all this mighty heap of hope, of thought, of learning, and humanity? It has ended in swallowing doses of oblivion"

From Romanticism: An Anthology, edited by Duncan Wu.



I have decided that I am going to do a postgraduate degree, probably in 20th century literature.

"People don’t buy music because of skill. Mostly, they experience music as a loud, rhythmic noise that causes them to dance, or to relive past memories, or as atmospheric background, or to experience emotions other than those directly caused by their situation. Sometimes they experience it as literature, as collections of words that tell stories or offer new ideas."

The literature metaphor is slightly tired, but is as equally relevant in describing my relationship with music as the rest of the passage is. It's not comprehensive, but it's something.

"Owen sat down, got out the letter of introduction, but didn't immediately open it. The ticking of the clock was very loud in the empty room. He lay back in the chair and closed his eyes. He was afraid to measure his sense of loss."

--Regeneration, by Pat Barker.

Sister: Hiyaaaaaa
Me: Hey!
Sister: How are you?
Oh there is a package fro you
Me: Ooh
Really?
Any sign of who it's from?
Sister: It's a heavy rectangular bow
with things that rools around inside of it
it says
if undelivered
please return to
Me: Eh?
Whaa?
start again
Sister: STOP GOING OFFLINE!
its says:
"if undelivered, please return to:"
Me: I'm not going offline!
Sister: then there is address
Me: What is it?
Sister: are you on drugs?
I DON'T KNOW
IT SAYS TO RETURN IT TO SOME PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANY IF NOT DELIVERED
Me: Am I on drugs? What the hell are you talking about?
Ohh...
Sister: Yes, are you on drugs?
What ohh???
What is it??
Me: Does it say Sauflon?
Sister: YES
SAUFLON
WHAT IS SAUFLON?
Me: My contact lenses.
Sister: oh.
damn.