“I think if she comes from anywhere that has a name, it is out of myth.”

— P. L. Travers

The Paris Review interview (1982)
Context: I think if she comes from anywhere that has a name, it is out of myth. And myth has been my study and joy ever since — oh, the age, I would think... of three. I’ve studied it all my life. No culture can satisfactorily move along its forward course without its myths, which are its teachings, its fundamental dealing with the truth of things, and the one reality that underlies everything. <!-- Yes, in that way you could say that it was teaching, but in no way deliberately doing so.

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P. L. Travers57

Australian-British novelist, actress and journalist 1899–1996

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“I think if she comes from anywhere that has a name, it is out of myth. And myth has been my study and joy ever since — oh, the age, I would think... of three. I’ve studied it all my life. No culture can satisfactorily move along its forward course without its myths, which are its teachings, its fundamental dealing with the truth of things, and the one reality that underlies everything.”

P. L. Travers (1899–1996) Australian-British novelist, actress and journalist

The Paris Review interview (1982)

“Everybody knew what she was called, but nobody anywhere knew her name. Disremembered and unaccounted for, she cannot be lost because no one is looking for her, and even if they were, how can they call her if they don't know her name? Although she has claim, she is not claimed.”

Toni Morrison book Beloved

Source: Beloved (1987), Ch. 28

“The true fairytales … come straight out of myth; they are, as it were, minuscule reaffirmation of myths, or perhaps the myth made accessible to the local folky mind.”

P. L. Travers (1899–1996) Australian-British novelist, actress and journalist

Source: Myth, Symbol, and Meaning in Mary Poppins (2007), Ch. 2, p. 39
Context: The true fairytales … come straight out of myth; they are, as it were, minuscule reaffirmation of myths, or perhaps the myth made accessible to the local folky mind. One might say that fairytales are the myths falling into time and locality … is the same stuff, all the essentials are there, it is small, but perfect. Not minimized, not to be made digestible for children.

“If it's us", she whispered, "how come you get to decide?"

When he didn't answer - couldn't answer - she turned and stared out the front window. As it turned out, they were still in the parking lot.

They hadn't gotten anywhere at all.”

Jodi Picoult book The Tenth Circle

Source: The Tenth Circle

“When I used [in his speech] the word silent myths it was for a personal reason. I mean that the relations of pictorial art to the formation of myths has to be silent, consequently not illustrative. In this part of Jutland where the life of the myth has grown strongest and is kept deepest for millenniums, here where I come from and where I have known the richness of the narrative imagination of the people, here I wanted to place a monument to the anonymous strength of the word, not to a single myth, nor to a single cycle of myths, because the myths of the Edda, of the heroic poetry, yes perhaps particularly the myths of the Kalevala, have inspired me like the myth which is to be created today in the people who are glad to tell, racy and fertile.”

Asger Jorn (1914–1973) Danish artist

Quote from Jorn's speech at the library of Silkeborg, September l0th 1953 (translated from an unpublished Danish manuscript by Guy Atkins) ; as quoted on the website of the Jorn Museum Articles by Jorn http://www.museumjorn.dk/en/article_presentation.asp?AjrDcmntId=255 <br class="br">1949 - 1958, Various sources

“I think I would know Nora's fart anywhere. I think I could pick hers out in a roomful of farting women.”

James Joyce (1882–1941) Irish novelist and poet

Source: About his wife, Nora. Selected Letters of James Joyce. http://www.slate.com/id/2181165

“A time will come when people will think I am a myth, or rather something the newspapers have made up.”

Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) French Post-Impressionist artist

Source: 1890s - 1910s, The Writings of a Savage (1996), p. 125: letter to Georges-Daniel de Monfreid (Tahiti, October 1897)

“I think fiction comes from everything you've ever done, and said, and dreamed, and imagined. It comes from everything you've read and haven't read…I think my work comes out of the culture of the world around me. I think that's where my language comes from.”

Don DeLillo (1936) American novelist, playwright and essayist

'Exile on Main Street: Don DeLillo's Undisclosed Underworld' by David Remnick, The New Yorker, September 15, 1997

“And it shamed me into silence, as quietly she said,
"If you want me to come with you, then that's all right with me.
Cause I know I'm going nowhere, and anywhere's a better place to be.
Anywhere's a better place to be."”

Harry Chapin (1942–1981) American musician

Better Place to Be
Song lyrics, Sniper and Other Love Songs (1972)

“As I think of the many myths, there is one that is very harmful, and that is the myth of countries.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature

"A Conversation With Jorge Luis Borges" http://www.wooster.edu/artfuldodge/interviews/borges.htm, Artful Dodge (April 1980) <br class="br">Context: As I think of the many myths, there is one that is very harmful, and that is the myth of countries. I mean, why should I think of myself as being an Argentine, and not a Chilean, and not an Uruguayan. I don't know really. All of those myths that we impose on ourselves — and they make for hatred, for war, for enmity — are very harmful. Well, I suppose in the long run, governments and countries will die out and we'll be just, well, cosmopolitans.

“I think if she comes from anywhere that has a name, it is out of myth.”

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P. L. Travers57

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