“Sappho was a worshipper of the Aphrodite cult and on the island of Lesbos there were many cliff-jumpers. They all jumped. Some may say they flew in ecstasy. If only for nine seconds -- one second for each string of the lyre.”
Flying Out of This World
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Peter Greenaway266
British film director 1942Related quotes
“All the world is made of music. We are all strings on a lyre. We resonate. We sing together.”
Joe Hill (1879–1915) Swedish-American labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World
Source: Heart-Shaped Box
“To a sprinter, the hundred-yard dash is over in three seconds, not nine or ten.”
Jesse Owens (1913–1980) American track and field athlete
Jesse Owens, Champion Athlete (1990)
Context: To a sprinter, the hundred-yard dash is over in three seconds, not nine or ten. The first "second" is when you come out of the blocks. The next is when you look up and take your first few strides to attain gain position. By that time the race is actually about half over. The final "second" — the longest slice of time in the world for an athlete — is that last half of the race, when you really bear down and see what you're made of. It seems to take an eternity, yet is all over before you can think what's happening.
“And now each second was as long as all the time before.”
Vernor Vinge A Fire Upon the Deep (1st edition)
Prologue (p. 4).
A Fire Upon the Deep (1992)
Context: The hours came to minutes, the minutes to seconds. And now each second was as long as all the time before.
Jack Kerouac book The Dharma Bums
Source: The Dharma Bums (1958)
Context: "Now you understand the Oriental passion for tea," said Japhy. "Remember that book I told you about; the first sip is joy, the second is gladness, the third is serenity, the fourth is madness, the fifth is ecstasy."
“Hands, that the rod of empire might have swayed,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre.”
Thomas Gray (1716–1771) English poet, historian
St. 12 <br class="br"> Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=elcc (written 1750, publ. 1751)
“Of all second-class citizens, neurotics are the only ones who are so by choice.”
Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist
The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Neurotics and neurosis