Quotes
Often, when perplexed, I longed to be like the smiling, lazy, forgetful black boys in the noisy hotel locker rooms, with no torrential conflicts to resolve. Many times I grew weary of the secret burden I carried and longed to cast it down, either in action or in resignation. But I was not made to be a resigned man and I had only a limited choice of actions, and I was afraid of all of them.
Why this shameful collapse before it all begins?
Why tremble so before the trumpet blares?
What dreams thrill me with fears?
All things were full of horror and affright,
And dreadful even the silence of the night.
Fear is the proof of a degenerate mind.
Fear gave wings to his feet.
The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.
Love is a thing full of anxious fears.
It is a miserable state of mind, to have few things to desire, and many things to fear; and yet that commonly is the case of kings; who, being at the highest, want matter of desire, which makes their minds more languishing; and have many representations of perils and shadows, which makes their minds the less clear.
Men fear death, as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children, is increased with tales, so is the other.
The world has so multiplied the causes of fear that no one is left entirely unafraid.
p. 12
Terror...often arises from a pervasive sense of disestablishment; that things are in the unmaking.
p. 22
