Royal summoned mourners. They came from the village, from the neighboring hills and, wailing like dogs at midnight, laid siege to the house. Old women beat their heads against the walls, moaning men prostrated themselves: it was the art of sorrow, an...
I've spent all the years since full of guilt and misery, even though I didn't remember it. I've let it run my thoughts, my plans, my whole life. But the experience doesn't own me. I own it. What I do with it is up to me, just like what Molly does wit...
I came with many knots in my heart, like the magician's rope. You undid them all at once. I see now the splendor of the student and that of the teacher's art. Love and this body sit inside your presence, one demolished, the other drunk. We smile. We ...
PLEASE TELL ME YOU KNOW OF SYLVIA PLATH Conventions bleed my soul squeeze me old wear me grey like a headstone in transit. It’s tradition and form— fear of the unknown— driving me dead in tight spaces darkly. I cry aloud but who can hear when I...
Way before we were scratching pictures on caves or beating rhythms on hollow trees we were perfecting the art of combining our breath and mind and muscles into fluid self-propulsion over wild terrain.
The reason for the difference between the architectural and engineering 'climate', so to speak, is very complex. It is partly a matter of terminology, partly a matter of historical accident, and the consequent training of architects and engineers, an...
It is sometimes said that the tragedy of an artist's life is that he cannot realize his ideal. But the true tragedy that dogs the steps of most artists is that they realize their ideal too absolutely. For, when the ideal is realized, it is robbed of ...
I decided at 40 I was wasting entire chunks of my brain and didn't want to blow my one chance on Earth. I'm glad I made that decision. Writing is largely about time, while visual art is largely about space. Sometimes, as with film, you can hybridize,...
You forget that sometimes comedy is just a big night out for people. Almost every show, people come up to me and go, 'This is the first comedy show I've ever seen,' so you want to do well. If you do horribly at somebody's first time seeing live stand...
I always think I know the way a novel will go. I write maps on oversized art pads like the kind I carried around in college when I was earnest about drawing. I need to have some idea of the shape of the novel, where its headed, so that I can proceed ...
You can use your means in a good and bad way. In German-speaking art, we had such a bad experience with the Third Reich, when stories and images were used to tell lies. After the war, literature was careful not to do the same, which is why writers be...
Sometimes the reason offered for seeking aesthetic excellence in the music of the church is that thereby one pleases God. I think that is true. But not because we know what music God enjoys-- though I suspect it must be music which is unified, rich, ...
As we come to grips with our own selfishness and stupidity, we make friends with the impostor and accept that we are impoverished and broken and realize that, if we were not, we would be God. The art of gentleness toward ourselves leads to being gent...
Live with the consequences of your deeds and enjoy the warmth they create. The only warmth in the cold, indifferent universe is that which we create ourselves. And that is what a work of art is, it is what a constructed life is, a fulfilled life, the...
Democrtitus, in the fifth century B.C. had declared that all the world was composed of only two elements: atomes and the void. This reduction of the myriad of forms to only two was the ultimate in dualistic reasoning. Christianity adopted dualism whe...
One day the English language is going to perish. The easy spokenness of it will perish and go black and crumbly — maybe — and it will become a language like Latin that learned people learn. And scholars will write studies of and and and and and ,...
One must always be careful, for the art of shamanism is fueled by the power of the will, interacting with the power of the plants. And it seems all too easy for some shamans to warp that power to dark ends, to the 'shamachismo' that can drive them to...
Sadly, at a time when so much sophisticated cultural criticism by hip intellectuals from diverse locations extols a vision of cultural hybridity, border crossing, subjectivity constructed out of plurality, the vast majority of folks in this society s...
There is beautiful you are." "No," said Marged, between a sigh and a sob. "Yes," said Owen. "No," said Marged, not so certain. "Behold," Owen said, from Solomon. "thou art fair. Thou hast dove's eyes." "Dove's eyes are small." Marged said. "Yours are...
Religion forces every individual to take responsibility. Specifically, take it away from yourself and give it to God. If we had to be accountable for every one of our actions, we'd be crippled with indecision. But with religion pointing the way, we c...
If it’s not already written, I want to write a book called, “The Art of Raw.” But instead of using my real name, I’ll use the pseudonym, “Sun Tzushi.
