Breakfast of Champions (1973)
Context: This book is my fiftieth-birthday present to myself. I feel as though I am crossing the spine of a roof — having ascended one slope.
I am programmed at fifty to perform childishly — to insult “The Star-Spangled Banner,” to scrawl pictures of a Nazi flag and an asshole and a lot of other things with a felt-tipped pen. To give an idea of the maturity of my illustrations for this book, here is my picture of an asshole:
Source: At Knit's End: Meditations for Women Who Knit Too Much
“On my 100th birthday, piloting Gordon and myself into the side of a mountain.”
When asked in 1995 how she would like to die. guardian.co.uk http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/1995/jul/22/fiction.maevebinchy?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487
Variant translation: Let the trumpet of the day of judgment sound when it will, I shall appear with this book in my hand before the Sovereign Judge, and cry with a loud voice, This is my work, there were my thoughts, and thus was I. I have freely told both the good and the bad, have hid nothing wicked, added nothing good.
Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1765-1770; published 1782), Book I
Context: Whenever the last trumpet shall sound, I will present myself before the sovereign judge with this book in my hand, and loudly proclaim, thus have I acted; these were my thoughts; such was I. With equal freedom and veracity have I related what was laudable or wicked, I have concealed no crimes, added no virtues; and if I have sometimes introduced superfluous ornament, it was merely to occupy a void occasioned by defect of memory: I may have supposed that certain, which I only knew to be probable, but have never asserted as truth, a conscious falsehood. Such as I was, I have declared myself; sometimes vile and despicable, at others, virtuous, generous and sublime; even as thou hast read my inmost soul: Power eternal! assemble round thy throne an innumerable throng of my fellow-mortals, let them listen to my confessions, let them blush at my depravity, let them tremble at my sufferings; let each in his turn expose with equal sincerity the failings, the wanderings of his heart, and, if he dare, aver, I was better than that man.
Charles Dupin (1808) in: Hacette (1813; 86-87); as cited in Margaret Bradley, Charles Dupin (1784-1873) and His Influence on France, Cambria Press. p. 69
Quoted in 2009 The Many States of Tracey Ullman https://tracey-archives.tumblr.com/post/119868522838/the-many-funny-states-of-tracey-ullman
Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower
“The birthday of my life
Is come, my love is come to me.”
A Birthday, st. 2.
“Even as a kid, my memories are of books taking me out of myself.”
