After all why should our goal be the reinstatement of an illusory 'exact' relationship between events and words? … - M. John Harrison

Same topic Authors

Quote of the day

My audience is the baby-boomers, the bulk of the population. This is also a group that is being ignored by most record companies because they're not the Top 40 hit singles market. They forget these people still listen to music.

M. John Harrison

After all why should our goal be the reinstatement of an illusory 'exact' relationship between events and words? If you probe in the ashes you will never learn anything about the fire: by the time the ashes can be handled the meaning has passed on. Every adventure is a cup so empty it can be drunk from again and again and again. Every adventure is so perfect it verges on silence.

Adventure, Fire, Drunk, Words, Exact, Time

Same Author Quotes

Stories pass the experienced world back and forth between them as a metaphor, until it is worn out. Only then do we realize that meaning is an act. We must repossess it, instant to instant in our lives.

Stories, World, Realizing, Forth, Back, Metaphor

I think it's undignified to read for the purposes of escape. After you grow up, you should start reading for other purposes

Growing Up, Purposes, Read, Reading, Start, Thinking

Egnaro is a secret known to everyone but yourself. It is a country or a city to which you have never been; it is an unknown language. At the same time it is like being cuckolded, or plotted against. It is part of the universe of events which will never wholly reveal itself to you: a conspiracy the barest outline of which, once visible, will gall you forever.

Country, Cities, Forever, Events, Reveal, Everyone

Identity is not negotiable. An identity you have achieved by agreement is always a prison.

Agreement, Identity, Negotiable, Prison

What is literature, and why do I try to write about it? I don’t know. Likewise, I don’t know why I go on living, most of the time. But this not knowing is precisely what I want to preserve. As readers, the closest way we can engage with a literary work is to protect its indeterminacy; to return ourselves and it to a place that precludes complete recognition. Really, when I’m reading, all I want is to stand amazed in front of an unknown object at odds with the world.

Reading, Writing, Knowing, Recognition, Object, Literature