
Volume 3, Ch. 13
Fiction, The Book of the Short Sun (1999–2001)
Variant: He is a weapon, a killer. Do not forget it. You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature.
Source: The Song of Achilles
Volume 3, Ch. 13
Fiction, The Book of the Short Sun (1999–2001)
The Figure a Poem Makes (1939)
Context: Scholars and artists thrown together are often annoyed at the puzzle of where they differ. Both work from knowledge; but I suspect they differ most importantly in the way their knowledge is come by. Scholars get theirs with conscientious thoroughness along projected lines of logic; poets theirs cavalierly and as it happens in and out of books. They stick to nothing deliberately, but let what will stick to them like burrs where they walk in the fields.
“Religion is like a knife: you can either use it to cut bread, or stick in someone's back.”
Source: Rite of Passage (1968), Chapter 18 (p. 222).