Source: Message in a Bottle
Sabhal Mòr Ostaig Lecture (December 19, 2007)
Source: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
“O hearts that break and give no sign
Save whitening lip and fading tresses!”
The Voiceless; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
In Defense of the Earth (1956), The Great Nebula of Andromeda
Source: Helen Craig McCullough's translations, Kokin Wakashū: The First Imperial Anthology of Japanese Poetry (1985), p. 174
Source: Pleasures of the Harbor (1967), Liner notes; part of this statement is often paraphrased "In such ugly times, the only true protest is beauty."
Context: I watched my life fade-away in a flash
A quarter of a century dash through closets full of candles with never a room
For rapture through a kingdom had been captured.
And so I turn away from my drizzling furniture and pass old ladies
Sniffling by movie stars' tombs, yes I must be home again soon.
To face the unspoken unguarded thoughts of habitual hearts
A vanguard of electricians a village full of tarts
Who say you must protest you must protest
It is your diamond duty…
Ah but in such an ugly time the true protest is beauty
And the bleeding seer crawled from the ruins of the empire
And stood bleeding, bleeding on the border
He said, passion has led to chaos and now chaos will lead to order.
Oh I have been away for a while and I hope to be back again soon.
“I'd rather be blind if I have to watch us fade.”
I Don't Want to Be the One
Resurrection (2014)
