One of the principle qualities of pain is that it demands an explanation.
The self forms at the edge of desire, and a science of self arises in the effort to leave that self behind.
Aristotle says that metaphor causes the mind to experience itself in the act of making a mistake.
Blessed be they whose lives do not taste of evilbut if some god shakes your houseruin arrivesruin does not leaveit comes tolling over the generationsit comes rolling the black night salt up from the ocean floorand all your thrashed coasts groan.
Desire is no light thing.
Philosophers say man forms himself in dialogue.
There is something about the way that Greek poets, say Aeschylus, use metaphor that really attracts me. I don’t think I can imitate it, but there’s a density to it that I think I’m always trying to push towards in English.
Up against another human being one’s own procedures take on definition.
All human desire is poised on an axis of paradox, absence and presence its poles, love and hate its motive energies.
At least half of your mind is always thinking, I’ll be leaving; this won’t last. It’s a good Buddhist attitude. If I were a Buddhist, this would be a great help. As it is, I’m just sad.
Lava bread makes you passionate.
Time isn’t made of anything. It is an abstraction. Just a meaning that we impose upon motion.
Consider incompleteness as a verb.
No one will ever make necessity not happen.
Those nights lying alone are not discontinuous with this cold hectic dawn. It is who I am.
We participate in the creation of the world by decreating ourselves.
Everything depends on liking the people and trusting the people. You have to assume that whatever they do will be as good as you want the thing to be and just go ahead with that.
Life pulls softly inside your bindings. The pod glows – dear stench.
Existence will not stop until it gets to beauty.
It takes practice to shave the skin off the light.
Love dares the self to leave itself behind, to enter into poverty.