A Quote by Stephen Burt
In the arts, in places where you're not going to save lives or save species, I think there's no reason to play ball. I can't imagine a serious poet who would want to write or perform for most recent inauguration. I'd be very surprised if there were an inaugural poem, and I can't really imagine what that would be.
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Would I if I could by pushing a button would I kill five
thousand Chinamen if I could save my brother from
anything. Well I was very fond of my brother and I
could completely imagine his suffering and I replied
that five thousand Chinamen was something I could not
imagine and so it was not interesting. One has to
remember that about imagination, that is when the
world gets dull when everybody does not know what
they can or what they cannot really imagine.
Imagination is the politics of dreams; imagination turns every word into a bottle rocket. . . . Imagine every day is Independence Day and save us from traveling the river changed; save us from hitchhiking the long road home. Imagine an escape. Imagine that your own shadow on the wall is a perfect door. Imagine a song stronger than penicillin. Imagine a spring with water that mends broken bones. Imagine a drum which wraps itself around your heart. Imagine a story that puts wood in the fireplace.
You are my queen. I’ve spent nine centuries seeking the mortal who would free this court, who would save my best friend’s son, who would save the lives of the rest of the girls who were not you. I’d die before I’d allow harm to you.” He bowed his head.
Every instance in my life, I've felt like the exact opposite of Superman. Except this time, this moment right now. I don't care. I don't feel like a weak, insipid sissy. Because right now I know I would save the girl. I know that I would rather risk the planet than let harm befall Eliza Wishart. I would save her in a second. Because I can imagine her and me huddled safe together while the earth falls under evil designs, but I can't imagine the world without her in it.
Can we imagine the United States without electricity? No, that would be pretty hard. Likewise, we can't really imagine being without an open Internet. The cost would be so grave, so serious.
My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.
It would probably be very sensible to be in love with someone who was not in the arts and who wasn't so prone to ups and downs. When I think of people who aren't in the arts, I immediately think of politicians for some reason, and I would never want to be with a politician.
Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose.
If there were no belief in god, if such a truth were ever realized, then their would be no fear of consequence. Stop for a moment and imagine what this world would be like without consequence and fear. Imagine what we could, what we would do. I dare not think of such a nightmare for it could only be born in pain.
If woman had no existence save in the fiction written by men, one would imagine her a person of utmost importance; very various; heroic and mean; splendid and sordid; infinitely beautiful and hideous in the extreme; as great as a man; some think even greater.
My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.
What do you imagine the American people would think of me if I wasted my time going to the ball game?
You can't write good characters if you can't imagine what it's like being in another person's skin. And if you can imagine that, you naturally want other people's lives to be better. You want to make that happen.
I write fiction longhand. That's not so much about rejecting technology as being unable to write fiction on a computer for some reason. I don't think I would write it on a typewriter either. I write in a very blind gut instinctive way. It just doesn't feel right. There's a physical connection. And then in nonfiction that's not the case at all. I can't even imagine writing nonfiction by hand.
I try to imagine how we would live if we didn't know we were going to die. Would we live our lives differently? Less careful, maybe? Less scared? These are beautiful things to think about and build a song around.
The only way to save a rhinoceros is to save the environment in which it lives, because there's a mutual dependency between it and millions of other species of both animals and plants.
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