De Abaitua interview (1998)
Context: The reason I got into magic was that it seemed to be what was lying at the end of the path of writing. If I wanted to continue on that path, I was going to have to get into that territory because I had followed writing as far as I thought I could without taking a step over the edges of rationality. The path led out of rational confines. When you start thinking about art and creativity, rationality is not big enough to contain it all.
"How to Read the Shui-hu chuan", § 26; in How to Read the Chinese Novel (1990), ed. David L. Rolston, p. 137
"The State of the Theatre" an interview by Henry Brandon in Harpers 221 (November 1960)
Context: I cannot write anything that I understand too well. If I know what something means to me, if I have already come to the end of it as an experience, I can't write it because it seems a twice-told tale. I have to astonish myself, and that of course is a very costly way of going about things, because you can go up a dead end and discover that it's beyond your capacity to discover some organism underneath your feeling, and you're left simply with a formless feeling which is not itself art. It's inexpressible and one must leave it until it is hardened and becomes something that has form and has some possibility of being communicated. It might take a year or two or three or four to emerge.
“I got magic and I got poetry in my fingertips.”
On The Alex Jones Show February 24 2011
"Document H1000089528" http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC Contemporary Authors Online, Gale. 2010.
Other
“It seemed there was no end at all to the lies a person could tell, once she got started.”
Source: The Memory Keeper's Daughter
1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Man of Letters
Out of Habit
Song lyrics
Variant: Art is why I get up in the morning; my definition ends there.
You know it doesn't seem fair,
That I'm living for something I can't even define.
And there you are right there, in the mean time.
Source: The Sayings and Teachings of the Great Mystics of Islam (2004), p. 203
“It seems that in the world of politics, lying is not such a big deal.”
If the European Countries Impose Sanctions, They Will Be More Harmed than Us; If You Toy with Our National Pride, You Will Face a Firm Response http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/1029.htm Feb. 2006.
Lying in politics
