“The spark, the ideas, the emotions of a novel can come from anywhere. They do not have one source, but they convect and converge to a centre, a place that concentrates and expresses their essence; a place that I know. And in the physical particulars and the spirit of that place I find the distillation, which is the book.”
– Alan Garner, Powsels and Thrums
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“How much more we would see, I sometimes think, if the world were lit solely by lightning flashes from the Elizabethan stage. What miraculous insights and perceptions might our senses be trained to receive amidst the alternate crash of thunder and the hurtling force that give a peculiar and momentary shine to an old tree on a wet night. Our world might be transformed interiorly from its staid arrangement of laws and uniformity of expression into one where the unexpected and blinding illumination constituted our faith in reality.”
– Loren Eiseley The Night Country.
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Sometimes metaphors start up in my mind, take a turn or two then dead end.
Reading and eating are not similar.
We need to eat at regular intervals to avoid perishing.
We don’t need to read for the same reason.
And yet: without intellectual sustenance I begin to wither. I need a steady stream of thought calories.
It doesn’t all have to be high minded, bran filled worthy ideas.
I crave trash every now and then.
It’s natural.
But Reading is not eating, otherwise I’d have to liken writing to shitting on the page.
There are all sorts of chemical changes that happen fthrough digestion. I cannot feel the effect of that specific nut or seed I’ve eaten.
But I can trace the change caused by a new idea.
Reading is revelation. A single strike of Understanding.
My DNA is altered irrecoverably and immediately.
I can never be full.
Conversations With Quotations 