“Years later I saw the gabbia at Piacenza; a harsh black canary-cage strung up high the side of the the towering campanile, in which prisoners were once left to starve to death and rot in full view of the town below. And looking up at it, I remembered that winter in Greece, that Gabbia I had constructed for myself out of light, solitude and self-delusions. My feelings at the end of that wretched term, were those of a man who knows he is in a cage, exposed to the jeers of all his old ambitions until he dies.”

—  John Fowles, book The Magus

Introduction (1977 edition)
The Magus (1965)

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 "Years later I saw the gabbia at Piacenza; a harsh black canary-cage strung up high the side of the the towering campani…" by John Fowles?
John Fowles photo
John Fowles120
British writer 1926–2005

Related quotes

“In early 1981 one of the most important moments in my life occurred. I entered a vivisection lab … In one of the cages, I saw a young Alaskan malamute … The dog tried to lick my face through the bars. Maybe he thought I had come to save him. I saw the infected stitches in the belly, oozing pus and blood. I saw the filthy, encrusted tube that was draining fluid out of his stomach. And as I held him, I saw the rotted stitches start to come apart and his guts start to spill out. As gently as I could, I let him down onto the floor of the cage and placed my hand on him, trying to comfort him in those last few moments of his life. I was still holding him when at last he took his final struggling breaths and died. It seemed to take a lifetime. I was close to tears as I looked at the body, and I thought, this isn’t science — this is madness. Standing there, looking at that gentle animal lying dead in a bloody cage, I made a promise to him and to myself, that I would never forget him, that I would keep on fighting vivisection until it was ended.”

Chris DeRose (1948) American actor and activist

"Chris DeRose: Vegan Easy Challenge Ambassador", interview with VeganEasy.org (2011) https://web.archive.org/web/20111012130026/http://veganeasy.org/Chris-DeRose.

Mark Satin photo

“I turn out the kitchen light and sit down at the kitchen table, my head buried in my arms. I try to tell myself that I feel sick from having had to write all those lies on my application. I'd commit suicide if I really saw myself as Keith's "assistant"! But I know that isn't the half of it…. If I do "choose to finish my B. A." I'll end up like Keith. But if I don't "choose" school I'll end up in Canada! And if I don't "choose" either – wouldn't I end up in Vietnam?”

Mark Satin (1946) American political theorist, author, and newsletter publisher

Pages 196–97. Fall of 1966. Satin has dropped out of SUNY and is sitting in his girlfriend's apartment in Manhattan. The application is for Canadian immigrant status. Keith, a supportive college professor, is seen by Satin as a plastic sellout.
Confessions of a Young Exile (1976)

Suzanne Collins photo

“Not if we blow it up," Gale says brusquely. His intent, his full intent, becomes clear. Gale has no interest in preserving the lives of those in the Nut. No interest in caging the pray for later use.
This is one of his death traps.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

Clarence Thomas photo

“It is interesting to remember that someone gave me a copy of Prof. Thomas Sowell's book, Education, Myths and Tragedies, in which he predicted much of what has happened to blacks and education. I threw it in the trash, unread, declaring that he was not a black man since no black could take the positions that he had taken, whatever they were, since I had only heard his views were not those of a black man.”

Clarence Thomas (1948) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

Anaïs Nin photo

“I prefer empty cages, Sabina, until I find a unique bird I once saw in my dreams.”

Anaïs Nin book A Spy in the House of Love

Source: A Spy in the House of Love

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow photo

“Don Quixote thought he could have made beautiful bird-cages and toothpicks if his brain had not been so full of ideas of chivalry. Most people would succeed in small things, if they were not troubled with great ambitions.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

Table-Talk (1857)

“I remember sometimes growing up I would feel ashamed of my mom or my dad if they came to pick us up at school, because they never looked like all the other mothers and fathers; they were always dirty because they had been out in the fields, drove in to pick us up at 3:00 so we could go to work…So I remember when I heard Chávez speak, when I saw him on television, I remember thinking that my mom and dad had actually contributed to the wealth of this country and I shouldn’t feel embarrassed by them or feel bad for them.”

Malaquías Montoya (1938) American artist

On how his viewpoint of his parents changed after the advent of César Chávez (as quoted in “’What better function for art at this time than as a voice for the voiceless’: The Work of Chicano Artist Malaquías Montoya” https://nacla.org/news/2019/02/17/%E2%80%9Cwhat-better-function-art-time-voice-voiceless%E2%80%9D-work-chicano-artist-malaqu%C3%ADas; 2019 Feb 15)

“What I saw was more than I could stand. The noise I heard had been made by Little Ann. All her life she had slept by Old Dan's side. And although he was dead, she had left the doghouse, had come back to the porch, and snuggled up by his side.”

Wilson Rawls book Where the Red Fern Grows

Source: Where the Red Fern Grows

Winston S. Churchill photo

“When I look back on all these worries I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

The Second World War, Volume II : Their Finest Hour (1949) Chapter 8 (September Tensions).
Post-war years (1945–1955)

Percy Bysshe Shelley photo

“Poor captive bird! Who, from thy narrow cage,
Pourest such music, that it might assuage
The rugged hearts of those who prisoned thee,
Were they not deaf to all sweet melody.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley Epipsychidion

Source: Epipsychidion (1821), l. 9

Related topics