Josette

“Bess who has been fingering a fruit-lid jar lid — absently, heedlessly dropped it — aimlessly groping across the table, reclaims it again. Lightning in her brain. She releases, grabs, releases, grabs. I can do. Bang! I did that. I can do. I! ... Centuries of human drive work in her; human ecstasy of achievement. satisfaction deep and fundamental as sex: I can do, I use my powers; I! I!”
― Tillie Olsen, Yonnondio from the Thirties

“Get drunk all the time. Go someplace and score.
Walk in and walk out of the Asp
Hike up Tam
Keep quitting and starting at Berkeley
Watch the pike in the Steinhart Aquarium: he doesn't move.
Sleeping with stangers
Keeping up on the news
Chanting sutras after sitting
Practicing yr frailing on guitar
Get dropped off in the fog in the night
Fall in love twenty times
Get divorced
Keep moving — move out to the Sunset
Get lost — or
Get found”
― Gary Snyder, Mountains and Rivers Without End

“We would be a lot safer if the Government would take its money out of science and put it into astrology and the reading of palms. I used to think that science would save us, and science certainly tried. But we can't stand any more tremendous explosions, either for or against democracy. Only in superstition is there hope. If you want to become a friend of civilization, then become an enemy of truth and a fanatic for harmless balderdash.

I know that millions of dollars have been spent to produce this splendid graduating class, and that the main hope of your teachers was, once they got through with you, that you would no longer be superstitious. I' sorry—I have to undo that now. I beg you to believe in the most ridiculous superstition of all: that humanity is at the center of the universe, the fulfiller or the frustrator of the grandest dreams of God Almighty.

If you can believe that, and make others believe it, then there might be hope for us. Human beings might stop treating each other like garbage, might begin to treasure and protect each other instead. Then it might be alright to have babies again.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, If This Isn't Nice, What Is?: Advice for the Young

“History is what [hearts]
curse shared out among the holes in personhood, the cars,
in the twist of torsos, the swing of blood,
a billion and a half tons of plastic and metal
moving around bound to some insane imperative
the stiffening cast of motion, shutter and shadow
morcellized, that's my jam,
that's the molecule won't compute,
won't shut up about how weird it is
no other world is possible
except all of them”
― Jasper Bernes, We Are Nothing and So Can You