“The assumption that we would ever be called upon to perform this second task now appeared quite clearly to me as the most extravagant folly, based on a wild delusion conceived by a raving idiot.”

—  Michael Shea , book Nifft the Lean

Part 3, Chapter 8 (p. 140)
Nifft the Lean (1982)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The assumption that we would ever be called upon to perform this second task now appeared quite clearly to me as the mo…" by Michael Shea?
Michael Shea photo
Michael Shea 40
writer 1946–2014

Related quotes

“Most of us are called on to perform tasks far beyond what we believe we can do.”

Lloyd Alexander book The Book of Three

Author's Note
Source: The Chronicles of Prydain (1964–1968), Book I: The Book of Three (1964)
Context: Most of us are called on to perform tasks far beyond what we believe we can do. Our capabilities seldom match our aspirations, and we are often woefully unprepared. To this extent, we are all Assistant Pig-Keepers at heart.

“(Performance) art is, perhaps, the first art phenomenon to clearly demonstrate that modern art has become antiquated. Modern art is based upon a single assumption. That the artwork is only what it is. It is not a picture or a metaphor for something else. It is, say, a photograph, first and only. Or, perhaps, it is a painting, first and only. This assumption still looms above us all. We automatically accept it. We fall back upon it whenever we have a problem in criticizing, accepting, or understanding a work of art.”

Gregory Battcock (1937–1980)

1984, p. 5
L’Art Corporel, 1979

John C. Calhoun photo

“Many in the South once believed that slavery was a moral and political evil. That folly and delusion are gone. We see it now in its true light, and regard it as the most safe and stable basis for free institutions in the world.”

John C. Calhoun (1782–1850) 7th Vice President of the United States

Regarding slavery (1838), as quoted in Brother Against Brother: The War Begins, (The Civil War series) vol. 1, William C. Davis, New York, NY, Time-Life Books, (1983) p. 40
1830s

Shannon Hale photo

“No one had ever called her wild before. She wanted to be wild now, for him. Wild seemed more enticing then a bowl of berries.”

Shannon Hale Forest Born

Source: Forest Born

“The division of distinctive social roles and tasks, based upon both inherited and socially acquired individual differences, is called social differentiation.”

Walter F. Buckley (1922–2006) American sociologist

Source: Class and society (1959), p. 4.

Carson McCullers photo

“A most mediocre person can be the object of a love which is wild, extravagant, and beautiful as the poison lillies of the swamp.”

Carson McCullers (1917–1967) American writer

Source: The Ballad of the Sad Café and Other Stories

“Are you an idiot, or an idiot?' Gargarin hissed.

'The first one. I really resent being called the second.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: Froi of the Exiles

William Stanley Jevons photo

“One of the first and most difficult steps in a science is to conceive clearly the nature of the magnitudes about which we are arguing.”

William Stanley Jevons The Theory of Political Economy

Source: The Theory of Political Economy (1871), Chapter III, Theory of Utility, p. 78.

Constantin Brâncuși photo

“There are idiots who define my work as abstract; yet what they call abstract is what is most realistic. What is real is not the appearance, but the idea, the essence of things.”

Constantin Brâncuși (1876–1957) French-Romanian artist

Original in French:
Il y a des imbéciles qui définissent mon œuvre comme abstraite, pourtant ce qu'ils qualifient d'abstrait est ce qu'il y a de plus réaliste, ce qui est réel n'est pas l'apparence mais l'idée, l'essence des choses.
Caiete Silvane magazine, 2008-11-01, Sculptura pe Internet http://www.caietesilvane.ro/indexcs.php?cmd=articol&idart=232,

Henry James photo

“A second chance—that’s the delusion. There never was to be but one. We work in the dark—we do what we can—we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.”

Henry James book The Middle Years

Source: The Middle Years

Related topics