Category: collection

Brian Greene: “We Begin Life as Uninhibited Explorers”

Photographers Unknown, Beguiling the Senses and Enchanting the Mind: Photo Set  One

“We begin life as uninhibited explorers with a boundless fascination for the ever growing world to which we have access. And what I find amazing is that if that fascination is fed, and if it’s challenged, and if it’s nurtured, it can grow to an intellect capable of grappling with such marvels.”

Albert Camus: “A Real Life”

Photographers Unknown, A Collection of Black and Whites for a Monday Evening

“…if the actor gave his performance without knowing that he was in a play, then his tears would be real tears and his life a real life. And whenever I think of this pain and joy that rise up in me, I am carried away by the knowledge that the game I am playing is the most serious and exciting there is.” 

—Albert Camus, Notebooks, 1935-1951

W. H. Auden: “The Present Instant in Its Full Reality”

Photographers Unknown, The Present Instant in Its Full Reality

“Laziness acknowledges the relation of the present to the past but ignores its relation to the future; impatience acknowledges its relation to the future but ignores its relation to the past; neither the lazy nor the impatient man, that is, accepts the present instant in its full reality and so cannot love his neighbor completely.” 

—W. H. Auden, The Complete Works of W. H. Auden: Prose, Volume 111: 1949-1955

Tom Robbins: “Flesh is Water. Stones are like Bones. Satisfied. Patient.”

Photographers Unknown, Faces of Man : Flesh and Stone

“Bones are patient. Bones never tire nor do they run away. When you come upon a man who has been dead many years, his bones will still be lying there, in place, content, patiently waiting, but his flesh will have gotten up and left him. Water is like flesh. Water will not stand still. It is always off to somewhere else; restless, talkative, and curious. Even water in a covered jar will disappear in time. Flesh is water. Stones are like bones. Satisfied. Patient. Dependable. Tell me, then, Alobar, in order to achieve immortality, should you emulate water or stone? Should you trust your flesh or your bones?”

–Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume

Stephen Fry: “The Mad Intensities That Made and Unmade Me”

Photographers Unknown, Ten Selfies

“It’s not all bad. Heightened self-consciousness, apartness, an inability to join in, physical shame and self-loathing—they are not all bad. Those devils have been my angels. Without them I would never have disappeared into language, literature, the mind, laughter and all the mad intensities that made and unmade me.”

Stephen Fry, Moab is My Washpot

Henry James: “Every Human Being Has His Shell”

Photographers Unknown, Every Human Being Has His Shell

“When you have lived as long as I, you will see that every human being has his shell, and that you must take the shell into account. By the shell I mean the whole envelope of circumstances. There is no such thing as an isolated man or woman; we are each of us made up of a cluster of appurtenances. What do you call one’s self? Where does it begin? Where does it end? It overflows into everything that belongs to us – and then flows back again. (…) One’s self – for other people – is one’s expression of one’s self; and one’s house, one’s clothes, the books one reads, the company one keeps – these things are all expressive.” 

—Henry James, The Portrait of a Lad

Ken Kesey: “I’m Not a Chicken, I’m a Rabbit”

Photographers and Artists Unknown, All Manner of Easter Rabbits

“Mr. McMurphy… my friend… I’m not a chicken, I’m a rabbit. The doctor is a rabbit. Cheswick there is a rabbit. Billy Bibbit is a rabbit. All of us in here are rabbits of varying ages and degrees, hippity-hopping through our Walt Disney world. Oh, don’t misunderstand me, we’re not in here because we are rabbitsーwe’d be rabbits wherever we wereーwe’re all in here because we can’t adjust to our rabbithood. We need a good strong wolf like the nurse to teach us our place.”

― Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest