What is WIND and what is BONE have never been conclusively determined by the generations of Chinese critics, but what is certain, according to Liu Hsieh, is that the perfect combination or balance of WIND and BONE, the metaphor for the ideal poem, is a bird. — Eliot Weinberger, An Elemental Thing. (New Directions; 1St… Continue reading Eliot Weinberger
In your loneliness, you hear the word from far away and then, in gratitude, look at it so closely that you cannot but drown in it. — Edmond Jabès, The Book of Questions: Volume II [Yaël; Elya; Aely; El, Or the Last Book] (Wesleyan; Revised ed. Edition, September 15, 1991) Originally published January 1st 1967.
I love you, and loving you I torment you. — Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. (Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 12th edition June 14, 2002) Originally published November 1880.
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final. Don’t let yourself lose me. Nearby is the country they call life. You will know it by it’s seriousness. Give me your hand. — Rainer Maria Rilke, from “Go To the Limits of Your Longing,” The Book of Hours: Love… Continue reading Rainer Maria Rilke
I would describe myself like a landscape I’ve studied at length, in detail; like a word I am coming to understand; like a pitcher I pour from at mealtime; like my mother’s face; like a ship that’s carried me when the waters raged. — Rainer Maria Rilke, from “The Book of Monastic Life,” Rilke’s book… Continue reading Rainer Maria Rilke
In a dream–in the last dream of the morning, I stood in the foothills today–beyond the world, held scales, and weighed the world. ― Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. (Penguin Books; Later Printing edition March 30, 1978) Originally published 1883.
Choose love! Choose love! Enter the rose garden, let your soul make peace with the thorns. — Rumi, The Forbidden Rumi: The Suppressed Poems of Rumi on Love, Heresy, and Intoxication. (Inner Traditions; Tra edition, February 14, 2006)
