Source: Nonconformity (1953/1996)
Context: You don't write a novel out of sheer pity any more than you blow a safe out of a vague longing to be rich. Compassion is all to the good, but vindictiveness is the verity Faulkner forgot: the organic force in every creative effort, from the poetry of Villon to the Brinks Express Robbery, that gives shape and color to all our dreams. [... ] A certain ruthlessness and a sense of alienation from society is as essential to creative writing as it is to armed robbery. The strong-armer isn't out merely to turn a fast buck any more than the poet is out solely to see his name on the cover of a book, whatever satisfaction that event may afford him. What both need most deeply is to get even. And, of course, neither will.
“The child is essentially alien to this society of men and might express his position in the words of the Gospel: My kingdom is not of this world”
The Secret of Childhood, p. 199
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Maria Montessori 39
Italian pedagogue, philosopher and physician 1870–1952Related quotes
'The Artist in American Society' - Colorado Magazine Vol. 15 No 2 Autumn 1966
“Go into all the world and preach the gospel, and, if necessary, use words.”
The Boomerang Mandate : Returning the Ministry to the People of God (1999) by Jim L. Wilson and Tom Stringfellow, p. 70.
Disputed, Preach the gospel, and if necessary, use words.
Sect. I : An Enquiry whether the Commission given by our Lord to his Disciples be not still binding on us.
An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians (1792)
Context: Our Lord Jesus Christ, a little before his departure, commissioned his apostles to Go, and teach all nations; or, as another evangelist expresses it, Go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. This commission was as extensive as possible, and laid them under obligation to disperse themselves into every country of the habitable globe, and preach to all the inhabitants, without exception, or limitation. They accordingly went forth in obedience to the command, and the power of God evidently wrought with them.
“A lot of my prophecies about the alienated society are going to come true”
Interview in Heavy Metal (April 1982)
Context: A lot of my prophecies about the alienated society are going to come true … Everybody's going to be starring in their own porno films as extensions of the polaroid camera. Electronic aids, particularly domestic computers, will help the inner migration, the opting out of reality. Reality is no longer going to be the stuff out there, but the stuff inside your head. It's going to be commercial and nasty at the same time, like "Rite of Spring" in Disney's Fantasia … our internal devils may destroy and renew us through the technological overload we've invoked.
Foreword to Creation, Evolution, & Modern Science (2000)
1990s
Joyce Carol Oates interviews herself (2013)
Context: My theory is that literature is essential to society in the way that dreams are essential to our lives. We can’t live without dreaming — as we can’t live without sleep. We are “conscious” beings for only a limited period of time, then we sink back into sleep — the “unconscious.” It is nourishing, in ways we can’t fully understand.
Star Of My Heart (1913)
Context: Except the Christ be born again tonight
In dreams of all men, saints and sons of shame,
The world will never see his kingdom bright.
Stars of all hearts, lead onward thro' the night
Past death-black deserts, doubts without a name,
Past hills of pain and mountains of new sin
To that far sky where mystic births begin,
Where dreaming ears the angel-song shall win.
Introduction
An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians (1792)
Context: As our blessed Lord has required us to pray that his kingdom may come, and his will be done on earth as it is in heaven, it becomes us not only to express our desires of that event by words, but to use every lawful method to spread the knowledge of his name. In order to this, it is necessary that we should become, in some measure acquainted with the religious state of the world; and as this is an object we should be prompted to pursue, not only by the gospel of our Redeemer, but even by the feelings of humanity, so an inclination to conscientious activity therein would form one of the strongest proofs that we are the subjects of grace, and partakers of that spirit of universal benevolence and genuine philanthropy, which appear so eminent in the character of God himself.