“If we were always here and now,
electric shiver in the spine,
how could we turn away, see life as grey and drab?
How come we don't see what we have?”

Source: "Now Lover" on 'Skin (1986)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Feb. 24, 2022. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "If we were always here and now, electric shiver in the spine, how could we turn away, see life as grey and drab? How…" by Peter Hammill?
Peter Hammill photo
Peter Hammill 6
British musician 1948

Related quotes

Eckhart Tolle photo
Bram van Velde photo

“Painting is an aid to vision. It turns life, the complexity of life, into something visible. It reveals things that we don’t know how to see.”

Bram van Velde (1895–1981) Dutch painter

2 April 1967; p. 62
1960's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde' (1965 - 1969)

Louisa May Alcott photo
John Lancaster Spalding photo

“When we have attained success, we see how inferior it is to the hope, yearning and enthusiasm with which we started forth in life’s morning.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 185

Donald J. Trump photo
John Berger photo
Stephen Hawking photo

“We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

Also quoted in "Stephen Hawking warns over making contact with aliens" http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8642558.stm at BBC News (25 April 2010).
Into The Universe with Stephen Hawking (2010)
Context: If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans. … We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet.

Julian of Norwich photo
Fernando Pessoa photo

“Life is what we make of it. Travel is the traveler. What we see isn't what we see but what we are.”

Original: (pt) Viajar? Para viajar basta existir. [...] Para quê viajar? Em Madrid, em Berlim, na Pérsia, na China, nos Pólos ambos, onde estaria eu senão em mim mesmo, e no tipo e género das minhas sensações?

A vida é o que fazemos dela. As viagens são os viajantes. O que vemos não é o que vemos, senão o que somos.
Source: The Book of Disquiet, p. 360
Context: To travel? In order to travel it's enough to be. […] Why travel? In Madrid, in Berlin, in Persia, in China, at the Poles both, where would I be but in myself, and in the sort and kind of my sensations?

Life is what we make of it. Travels are travellers. What we see is not what we see but what we are.

Related topics