Vision._.Revision

“When you come to live with a woman, you will soon cease to see anything of what made you love; though it is true that the two sundered elements can be reunited by jealousy.”
― Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time, Vol. 3: Sodom and Gomorrah & The Captive

“...and in the spell
Of Proust's great paragraphs we hear and see
The ocean into which we all, as he did,
Must sink back, our achievements left behind –
Whether a necessary task fulfilled
Or else whole symphonies – and be reclaimed
By nature, which has no mind of its own
But simply makes us welcome, as the ashes
Of Maria Callas, spread on the Agean,
Were first a cloud, and then a mist, then nothing
But an everlasting song reduced to atoms
Which, though they drift apart, are still together
In the memories of those of us who live.”
― Clive James, Gate of Lilacs: A Verse Commentary on Proust

“The fact remains that America is a collective work of the imagination whose making never ends, and once that sense of collectivity and mutual respect is broken the possibilities of American-ness begin to unravel. [...]
Throughout the 80s, this happened with depressing regularity on both sides of American party politics. Instead of common ground, we got demagogues. [...] Neo-conservatives who create an exaggerated bogey called multiculturalism - as though Western culture itself was ever anything but multi, living by its eclecticism, its power of successful imitation, its ability to absorb "foreign" forms and stimuli! - and pushers of political correctness who would like to see grievance elevated into automatic sanctity.”
― Robert Hughes, Culture of Complaint: The Fraying of America

“When a man starts to learn, he is never clear about his objectives. His purpose is faulty; his intent is vague. He hopes for rewards that will never materialise, for he knows nothing of the hardships of learning.

He slowly begins to learn — bit by bit at first, then in big chunks. And his thoughts soon clash. What he learns is never what he pictured, or imagined, and so he begins to be afraid. Learning is never what one expects. Every step of learning is a new task, and the fear the man is experiencing begins to mount mercilessly, unyieldingly.”
― Carlos Castaneda, The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge