“Be you not toys any longer! Stir up the wild business in you. You have to be real animals before you can be men.”

—  R. A. Lafferty

Source: Space Chantey (1968), Ch. 6
Context: The witch has been playing a semantic trick on us. We were already pretty salty animals when we came here! It is toy animals she has turned us into. We have been working against ourselves, trying to be men again, but to be her idea of men, since we live in her context. But she does not know real animals, or men. … Be you not toys any longer! Stir up the wild business in you. You have to be real animals before you can be men.

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R. A. Lafferty 109
American writer 1914–2002

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