A Quote by George V. Higgins
The received image of a writer is that of an unproductive sensitive who suffers from the vapors, is enslaved by his gonads, falls victim to romantic swoons and passes out at deadlines.
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No man, however enslaved to his appetites, or hurried by his passions, can, while he preserves his intellects unimpaired, please himself with promoting the corruption of others. He whose merit has enlarged his influence would surely wish to exert it for the benefit of mankind. Yet such will be the effect of his reputation, while he suffers himself to indulge in any favourite fault, that they who have no hope to reach his excellence will catch at his failings, and his virtues will be cited to justify the copiers of his vices.
Is slavery - owner, victim, profit, and domination - exclusive to the human race? Have blacks, Jews, women and children been the only victims of this atrocity? Have not cows been enslaved? What about pigs, chickens, turkeys, fish, sheep? If they’re not enslaved, then what are they? Free?
The romantic idea is that everybody around a writer must suffer for his talent. I think a writer is a citizen of humanity, part of his nation, part of his family. He may have to make some compromises.
He who suffers in patience, surfers less and saves his soul. He who suffers impatiently, suffers more and loses his soul.
The Negro enslaved by his inferiority, the white man enslaved by his superiority alike behave in accordance with a neurotic orientation.
Everyone suffers. Rain falls on the just and the unjust alike. It falls on both the rich and the poor too. Leftist materialists imagine suffering to be a factor of economic circumstance.
As the perfect parent, God suffers emotional pain when his creatures, created in his own image and likeness, rebel against him and do evil instead of good.
If the criminal will not keep his gains for ever and his victim will not always suffer want, surely man passes like a shadow and troubles himself in vain.
God passes through the thicket of the world, and wherever His glance falls He turns all things to beauty.
At first, man was enslaved by the gods. But he broke their chains. Then he was enslaved by the kings. But he broke their chains. He was enslaved by his birth, by his kin, by his race. But he broke their chains. He declared to all his brothers that a man has rights which neither god nor king nor other men can take away from him, no matter what their number, for his is the right of man, and there is no right on earth above this right. And he stood on the threshold of freedom for which the blood of the centuries behind him had been spilled.
God never gives dominion to any creature which has not received his image. His image is love. Other things belong to God; but God is love. No creature that has not love will be allowed to have a permanent empire. The Father of mercy will not put the reigns of government into a hand that has no heart. Dominion is a very solemn thing; it may oppress, crush, destroy. The Father must have a guarantee for its gentleness. What guarantee can there be but his image - the possession of a nature tender as the Divine?
I believe that there is much less difference between the author and his works than is currently supposed; it is usually in the physical appearance of the writer,--his manners, his mien, his exterior,--that he falls short of the ideal a reasonable man forms of him--rarely in his mind.
The tragedy of Eliot Spitzer is almost Greek: Ascendant son of wealth and privilege dedicates his life to social justice, warns of the corruption lurking among us, and falls victim to his inner demons at the very moment of vindication.
When I was about eighteen, I saw myself as a rather sensitive, delicate, poetic, romantic figure. And then I got into the Civilian Conservation Corps and into the army, and I started smoking and drinking and being tough and getting muscles, and I had a whole different image of myself.
The creative writer uses his life as well as being its victim; he can control, in his work, the self-presentation that in actuality is at the mercy of a thousand accidents.
Being a victim doesn't take much. There are built-in excuses for failure. Built-in excuses for being miserable. Built-in excuses for being angry all the time. No reason to trying to be happy; it's not possible. You're a victim. Victim of what? Well, you're a victim of derision. Well, you're a victim of America. You're a victim of America's past, or you're a victim of religion. You're a victim of bigotry, of homophobia, whatever. You're a victim of something. The Democrats got one for you. If you want to be a victim, call 'em up.
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