The only reason we write - well, the only reason why I write; maybe I shouldn't generalize - is so that I can find out something about myself. Writers have this narcissistic obsession about how we got to be who we are. I have to understand my ancestors - my father, his mother and her mother - to understand who I am. It all leads back to the narcissistic pleasure of discovering yourself.
Sandra CisnerosRelated topics
discovering father find mother obsession pleasure reason something well write narcissisticRelated quotes
I've seen a lot of patriots and they all died just like anybody else if it hurt bad enough and once they were dead their patriotism was only good for legends it was bad for their prose and made them write bad poetry. If you are going to be a great patriot i.e. loyal to any existing order of government (not one who wishes to destroy the existing for something better) you want to be killed early if your life and works won't stink.
Ernest Hemingway
It is not possible to put the Gospel and secular logic together. In the Gospel there is love, while in secular logic there is self-interest. The Gospel says, And if any one forces you to go one mile, go with him two. (Mt. 5:41) What is logical about this saying? This is surely madness! This is why those who try to reconcile the Gospel with secular logic find themselves in utter confusion.
Paisios of Mount Athos
So you play your albums and you smoke your pot And you meet your girlfriend in the parking lot Oh, but still you're aching for the things you haven't got, What went wrong? And if you can't understand why your world is so dead And why you've got to keep in style and feed your head Well, you're twenty one and still you mother makes your bed And that's too long.
Billy Joel
The art of music is good, for the reason, among others, that it produces pleasure; but what proof is it possible to give that pleasure is good? If, then, it is asserted that there is a comprehensive formula, including all things which are in themselves good, and that whatever else is good, is not so as an end, but as a mean, the formula may be accepted or rejected, but is not a subject of what is commonly understood by proof.
John Stuart Mill
To write and speak correctly is certainly necessary; but it is not sufficient. A derivation correctly presented in the book or on the blackboard may be inaccessible and uninstructive, if the purpose of the successive steps is incomprehensible, if the reader or listener cannot understand how it was humanly possible to find such an argument....
George Pólya