Steve

“But none of em seem to realize that these things aren’t always a man’s own fault. It’s luck that’s all it is,”
― John Dos Passos, Manhattan Transfer: A Novel

“this is a nervous little decade we’re playing with”
― Richard Fariña, Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me

“I tell you that what has changed is the whole conception of human life- that men of every race on this earth may have the same opportunity to live beautifully- to live in purity without fear or hunger or hatred- as brothers, not as brutes tearing through these hideous swamps of ignorance and war. Men speak of a belief in God. I am beginning to understand what every Christ- and their skins have been every color- what every Christ has taught: That love of God is love of mankind. That no one can profess to love God while he hates the least of his fellows. Jesus, if He were on earth right now, would fight to free men from oppression and evil and war; and you who have made a pious mockery of his every commandment- you would kill Him.”
― Kenneth Patchen

“Deeply ambivalent also is carnival laughter itself. Genetically it is linked with the most ancient forms of ritual laughter. Ritual laughter was always directed toward something higher: the sun (the highest god), other gods, the highest earthly authority were put to shame and ridiculed to force them to renew themselves.”
― Mikhail Bakhtin, Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics