Source: The Art of Racing in the Rain
“Sometimes we have the absolute certainty there's something inside us that's so hideous and monstrous that if we ever search it out we won't be able to stand looking at it. But it's when we're willing to come face to face with that demon that we face the angel.”
Last Exit to Brooklyn (1964)
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Hubert Selby Jr. 39
American writer 1928–2004Related quotes

Source: Who Is Man? (1965), Ch. 5<!-- Disavowal of transcendence, p. 84 -->
Context: Exclusive manipulation results in the dissolution of awareness of all transcendence. Promise becomes a pretext, God becomes a symbol, truth a fiction, loyalty tentative, the holy a mere convention. Mans very existence devours all transcendence. Instead of facing the grandeur of the cosmos, he explains it away; instead of beholding, he takes a picture; instead of hearing a voice, he tapes it. He does not see what he is able to face. There is a suspension of mans sense of the holy. His mind is becoming a wall instead of being a door open to what is larger than the scope of his comprehension. He locks himself out of the world by reducing all reality to mere things and all relationship to mere manipulation. Transcendence is not an article of faith. It is what we come upon immediately when standing face to face with reality.

2000s, 2001, Freedom and Democracy Are Under Attack (September 2001)

“Now we stand face to face—but who can tell
we shan't wake up and learn it was a dream?”
Source: The Tale of Kiều (1813), Lines 443–444

“Death comes for us all. We can only choose how to face it when it comes.”
Aviendha
(15 October 1991)
Source: The Dragon Reborn

Interview (17 July 1971)