“ He saw the fate awaiting him, and he wasn’t having it. Grasped it intuitively and recoiled spontaneously. You can’t let the big they impose its bigotry on you any more than you can let the little they become a we and impose its ethics on you. Not the tyranny of the we and its we-talk and everything that the we wants to pile on your head. Never for him the tyranny of the we that is dying to suck you in, the coercive, inclusive, historical, inescapable moral we with its insiduous E pluribus unum. Neither the they of Woolworth’s nor the we of Howard. Instead the raw I with all its agility. Self-discovery, that was the punch to the labonz. Singularity. The passionate struggle for singularity. The singular animal.
Philip Roth, The Human Stain
“ George: I think you absolutely have to say something to this guy. Confront him.
Elaine: Really?
George: Yes.
Elaine: Would you do that?
George: If I was a different person.
Elaine: Really?
George: Yes.
Elaine: Would you do that?
George: If I was a different person.
“ It is our function as artists to make the spectator see the world our way – not his way.
Mark Rothko
all my single ladies (all my single ladies) all my single ladies (all my single ladies)
“ When you’re a teenager and in your early twenties [love] seems desperately eternal and excruciatingly painful. Whereas as you grow older you realise that most things are excruciatingly painful and that is the human condition. Most of us continue to survive because we’re convinced that somewhere along the line, with grit and determination and perseverance, we will end up in some magical union with somebody. It’s a fallacy, of course, but it’s a form of religion. You have to believe. There is a light that never goes out and it’s called hope.
Morrissey
