“Compare the saint who, asked what he would do if he had only an hour to live, replied that he would go on with his game of chess, since it was as much worship as anything else he had ever done.”

—  Randall Jarrell

“These Are Not Psalms”, p. 124
Kipling, Auden & Co: Essays and Reviews 1935-1964 (1980)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Compare the saint who, asked what he would do if he had only an hour to live, replied that he would go on with his game…" by Randall Jarrell?
Randall Jarrell photo
Randall Jarrell 215
poet, critic, novelist, essayist 1914–1965

Related quotes

Richard Wright photo

“He had lived and acted on the assumption that he was alone, and now he saw that he had not been. What he had done made others suffer. No matter how much he would long for them to forget him, they would not be able to. His family was a part of him, not only in blood, but in spirit.”

Richard Wright (1908–1960) African-American writer

Native Son (1940)

“Nothing, then, would prevent him henceforth from living his life, a purely secular life, according to his nature and his habits, without having to ask himself at every moment whether what he had done was displeasing to God or not. And since he was no longer the sinner whose life, as soon as he acted by his own powers, was but sin, he would be able to enumerate separately the sins which he had committed on a particular occasion.”

Bernard Groethuysen (1880–1946) French literary historian, translator and writer

Source: The Bourgeois: Catholicism vs. Capitalism in Eighteenth-Century France (1927), p. 120

“The question isn't about what Schubert would have done if he had lived as long as Beethoven. The question is about what Schubert would have done if he had lived as long as Mozart.”

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

'Alfred Einstein', p. 184
Essays and reviews, Cultural Amnesia: Notes in the Margin of My Time (2007)

John Henry Newman photo

“After he had gone over the mansion, his entertainer asked him what he thought of the splendours it contained; and he in reply did full justice to the riches of its owner and the skill of its decorators, but he added, "Lions would have fared better, had lions been the artists."”

John Henry Newman (1801–1890) English cleric and cardinal

Lecture I, Section 1.
Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England (1851)

Ken Thompson photo

“Ken Thompson was once asked what he would do differently if he were redesigning the UNIX system. His reply: "I'd spell creat with an e."”

Ken Thompson (1943) American computer scientist, creator of the Unix operating system

[The UNIX programming environment, Kernighan, Brian W., Brian Kernighan, Pike, Rob, w:Rob Pike, Prentice-Hall, 1984, 10269821, 0139376992], p. 204 http://books.google.com/books?id=poFQAAAAMAAJ&q=%22spell+creat+with+an+e%22&dq=%22spell+creat+with+an+e%22.

Bear Bryant photo

“I don't guess anybody would think much of what Joe did nowadays, including myself. But he was supposed to be a leader, so he had to live by the rules. It was the hardest thing I ever had to do, and it was to the greatest athlete I ever coached.”

Bear Bryant (1913–1983) American college football coach

Speaking about Joe Namath, the star quarterback, being benched for an infraction before the 1963 final regular-season game against Miami and the Sugar Bowl.
Source: Football's Supercoach, B.J., Phillips, Sep. 29, 1980, Time, 6, 2008-12-11 http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,952802-6,00.html,

Orson Scott Card photo

“As he thought of it, though, he could not imagine what “just living” might actually be. He had never done it in his life. But he wanted to do it anyway.”

Orson Scott Card book Ender's Game

Source: Ender's Game

André Malraux photo

“"Why do you fight?"… He kept his wife, his kid, from dying. That was nothing. Less than nothing. If he had had money, if he could have left it to them, he would have been free to go and get killed. As if the universe had not treated him all his life with kicks in the belly, it now despoiled him of the only dignity he could ever possess — his death.”

André Malraux (1901–1976) French novelist, art theorist and politician

La condition humaine [Man's Fate] (1933)

Philip Pullman photo

“He dared to do what men and women don't even dare to think. And look what he's done already: he's torn open the sky, he's opened the way to another world. Who else has ever done that? Who else could think of it?”

Philip Pullman book The Subtle Knife

Source: The Subtle Knife

Bobby Fischer photo

“Morphy and Capablanca had enormous talent, they are two of my favorites. Steinitz was very great too. Alekhine was great, but I am not a big fan of his. Maybe it’s just my taste. I’ve studied his games a lot, but I much prefer Capablanca and Morphy. Alekhine had a rather heavy style, Capablanca was much more brilliant and talented, he had a real light touch. Everyone I’ve spoken to who saw Capablanca play still speak of him with awe. If you showed him any position he would instantly tell you the right move. When I used to go to the Manhattan Chess Club back in the fifties, I met a lot of old-timers there who knew Capablanca, because he used to come around to the Manhattan club in the forties – before he died in the early forties. They spoke about Capablanca with awe. I have never seen people speak about any chess player like that, before or since. Capablanca really was fantastic. But even he had his weaknesses, especially when you play over his games with his notes he would make idiotic statements like 'I played the rest of the game perfectly.”

Bobby Fischer (1943–2008) American chess prodigy, chess player, and chess writer

But then you play through the moves and it is not true at all. But the thing that was great about Capablanca was that he really spoke his mind, he said what he believed was true, he said what he felt.
Radio Interview, October 16 2006 http://www.geocities.jp/bobbby_b/mp3/F_35_3.MP3

Related topics