“Now I am not ashamed of my defeat.
One murky island with its barking seals
Or a parched desert is enough
To make us say: yes, oui, si.”
"A Magic Mountain" (1975), trans. Czesław Miłosz and Lillian Vallee
Hymn of the Pearl (1981)
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Czeslaw Milosz 106
Polish, poet, diplomat, prosaist, writer, and translator 1911–2004Related quotes
“The desert is not an island: the island is not enchanted: and the desert is no habitation for men.”
"To speak about the soul"

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Amsterdam 12 June, 1877; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, p. 29 (letter 101)
while studying in Amsterdam at the theological school, to become clergyman
1870s

Les psychiatres sont très efficaces. Avant, je pissais au lit et j'avais honte. J'ai été voir un psychiatre et ça va mieux. Maintenant, je pisse au lit mais je suis fier.
[Coluche, Médecins sans diplômes, Coluche : l’intégrale, 6, Sony Music, 1996]

“All right, have it your way — you heard a seal bark!”
Cartoon caption, The New Yorker (30 January 1932); "Women and Men", The Seal in the Bedroom and Other Predicaments (1932); also used in "The Lady on the Bookcase", Alarms and Diversions (1957).
Cartoon captions

“Gentlemen, I am a bulldog, and you will find my bark is worse!”
Sir Henry at Rawlinson End (1978)

““What’s your hand look like?“
“A parched desert… How’s yours?“
“A wasteland of bitter frustration.“”
Source: Red Seas Under Red Skies (2007), Chapter 1 “Little Games” section 1 (p. 7)

Source: Simon and Garfunkel's Greatest Hits