[b]André Malraux
I’ve been very near death. And you can’t imagine the wild elation of those moments—it’s the sudden glimpse of the absurdity of life that brings it—when one meets death face to face.[/b]
You know, in a perfect world.
The day may come when, contemplating a world given back to the primeval forest, a human survivor will have no means of even guessing how much intelligence Man once imposed upon the forms of the earth, when he set up the stones of Florence in the billowing expanse of the Tuscan olive-groves. No trace will be left then of the palaces that saw Michelangelo pass by, nursing his grievances against Raphael; and nothing of the little Paris cafes where Renoir once sat beside Cezanne, Van Gogh beside Gauguin. Solitude, vicegerent of Eternity, vanquishes men’s dreams no less than armies, and men have known this ever since they came into being and realized that they must die.
On the other hand, that day may not come at all. So, whatever you do, don’t count on it.
No one can endure his own solitude.
Trust me: Some would not have it any other way.
If a man is not ready to risk his life, where is his dignity?
For what one might ask.
The sons of torture victims make good terrorists.
A logic all its own as it were.
One cannot create an art that speaks to me when one has nothing to say.
Really, this works much the same way here too.