Patrick Howell

“It’s not ‘natural’ to speak well, eloquently, in an interesting articulate way. People living in groups, families, communes say little—have few verbal means. Eloquence—thinking in words—is a byproduct of solitude, deracination, a heightened painful individuality.”
― Susan Sontag

“You’re always condemned to die. It’s just a matter of timing.”
― Mark Helprin, A Soldier of the Great War

“These are the last remainders of Jayber's ideals. He holds to them against the possibility that life will mean nothing and be worth nothing. He is a despairing believer in these things, knowing that everything fails. The ideal rides ahead of the real, renewing beyond it, perishing in it unreachable, surely, but made new over and over again just by hope and by the passage of time; what has not yet failed remains possible. And the ideal, remaining undiminished and perfect, out of reach, makes possible a judgment of failure, and a just grief and sympathy”
― Wendell Berry, A Place on Earth

“The general history of art and literature shows that the highest achievements of the human mind are, as a rule, not favorably received at first; but remain in obscurity until they win notice from intelligence of a high order, by whose influence they are brought into a position which they then maintain, in virtue of the authority thus given them. If the reason of this should be asked, it will be found that ultimately, a man can really understand and appreciate those things only which are of like nature with himself. The dull person will like what is dull, and the common person what is common; a man whose ideas are mixed will be attracted by confusion of thought; and folly will appeal to him who has no brains at all; but best of all, a man will like his own works, as being of a character thoroughly at one with himself.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The Wisdom of Life