There is pain in who we are, and the pain of love – because love itself is an opening and a wound – is a pain no one escapes except by escaping life itself. — Jeanette Winterson, from the Preface of Djuna Barnes’ Nightwood. (New Directions; unknown edition September 26, 2006) Originally published 1936.
This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing… Continue reading Walt Whitman
Then the writing became so fluid that I sometimes felt as if I were writing for the sheer pleasure of telling a story, which may be the human condition that most resembles levitation. – Gabriel García Márquez, Introduction to Strange Pilgrims. (Vintage; Reprint edition November 14, 2006) Originally published 1993.
Why does tragedy exist? Because you are full of rage. Why are you full of rage? Because you are full of grief. — Anne Carson, from the Preface, Grief Lessons: Four Plays by Euripides. (NYRB Classics September 16, 2008)
The Vale of Soul-Making 