The ambiguity when the performance of self becomes self-destructive, or when performance of self becomes pathological. That gray area interests me as a poet because it's so wrapped up in everyday life now that it's almost mundane. So much of this performance is tied to feelings of worth and value; in essence, it becomes ongoing, an entire existence all on its own...
Sally Wen MaoRelated topics
almost ambiguity area entire essence everyday existence gray life mundane now ongoing performance poet self value worth wrap interests feelingsRelated quotes
You are a beautiful person, Doctor. Clearheaded. Strong. But you seem always to be dragging your heart along the ground. From now on, little by little, you must prepare yourself to face death. If you devote all of your future energy to living, you will not be able to die well. You must begin to shift gears, a little at a time. Living and dying are, in a sense, of equal value.
Haruki Murakami
I cannot avoid wondering about the feelings of those who are now the apparent rulers of Iran. They are, despite their mistakes and the crimes which they have instigated, men of faith who claim to be sent by God. I hope they will eventually realize that the revolution which they believe they have brought about is not to the glory of God, but serves the forces of evil.
Muhammad Reza Pahlavi
Unreason is now ascendant in the United States-in our schools, in our courts, and in each branch of the federal government. Only 28 percent of Americans believe in evolution; 68 percent believe in Satan. Ignorance in this degree, concentrated in both the head and belly of a lumbering superpower, is now a problem for the entire world.
Sam Harris
In this century the writer has carried on a conversation with madness. We might almost say of the twentieth-century writer that he aspires to madness. Some have made it, of course, and they hold special places in our regard. To a writer, madness is a final distillation of self, a final editing down. It's the drowning out of false voices.
Don DeLillo
There is something about the literary life that repels me, all this desperate building of castles on cobwebs, the long-drawn acrimonious struggle to make something important which we all know will be gone forever in a few years, the miasma of failure which is to me almost as offensive as the cheap gaudiness of popular success.
Raymond Chandler
