Talie

“Sometimes success demands a certain refined insanity.”
― Isobelle Carmody, The Keeping Place

“Creativity is, by its nature, fitful and inconstant, easily upset by constraint, foreboding, insecurity, external pressure. Any great preoccupation with the problems of ensuring animal survival exhausts the energies and disturbs the receptivity of the sensitive mind. Such creativity as was first achieved in the city came about largely through an arrogation of the economic means of production and distribution by a small minority, attached to the temple and the palace. In the epic of creation Marduk remarks of man: "Let him be burdened with the toil of the gods that they may freely breathe." Shall we err greatly if we translate this as: "Let our subjects be burdened with daily toil that the king and the priesthood may freely breathe"?”
― Lewis Mumford, The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects

“To be a poet is a condition rather than a profession.”
― Robert Graves

“Every word out of his mouth felt like it was being etched into history; every glance contained a subtle rebuke, an invitation for others to measure themselves against him and discover the ways in which they were wanting.”
― Stuart Turton, The Devil and the Dark Water