Quotes
Words on the page define men to future generations.
p. 27
Talking is not enough; words don’t clarify anything. I’ll have to hit upon something, but what?
p. 49
But I believe in writing — nothing else; just writing. Man may live like a worm, but he writes like a god. There was a time when that secret was known, but now it has been forgotten; the world is composed of disintegrating fragments, an incoherent dark chaos, sustained by writing alone. If you have a concept of the world, if you have not yet forgotten all that has happened, that you have a world at all, it is writing that has created that for you, and ceaselessly goes on creating it; Logos, the invisible spider’s thread that holds our lives together.
Tone of voice is more crucial than words.
p. 25
Four things do not come back: the spoken word, the sped arrow, the past life, and the neglected opportunity.
p. 29
A man of worth never gets up to unsay what he said yesterday.
Proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten.
The reality of beauty yields itself to no words.
Always keep your words soft and sweet, just in case you have to eat them.
p. 206
Talkers never acted when they could talk.
p. 53
Thunder impresses, but it’s lightning does the work.
p. 253
The quicker you are in attaching verbal or mental labels to things, people, or situations, the more shallow and lifeless your reality becomes, and the more deadened you become to reality, the miracle of life that continuously unfolds within and around you. In this way, cleverness may be gained, but wisdom is lost, and so are joy, love, creativity, and aliveness.
