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Lawrence Durrell

Lawrence Durrell Quotes

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Famous Lawrence Durrell Quotes

“It is a pity indeed to travel and not get this essential sense of landscape values. You do not need a sixth sense for it. It is there if you just close your eyes and breathe softly through your nose; you will hear the whispered message, for all landscapes ask the same question in the same whisper. 'I am watching you -- are you watching yourself in me?' Most travelers hurry too much...the great thing is to try and travel with the eyes of the spirit wide open, and not to much factual information. To tune in, without reverence, idly -- but with real inward attention. It is to be had for the feeling...you can extract the essence of a place once you know how. If you just get as still as a needle, you'll be there.”

TravelLandscapePlace16New Journalism
Book:Spirit of Place : Letters and Essays on Travel
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“Try and travel with the eyes of the spirit wide open, and not too much factual information. To tune in, without reverence, idly -- but with real inward attention. It is to be had for the feeling, that mysterious sense of rapport, of identity with the ground. You can extract the essence of a place once you know how. If you just get as still as a needle you'll be there.”

IfsKnowsTryingStillsRealFeelingsEyeSpiritAttentionKnow HowToo MuchInformationIdentityTravelEssenceWideMysteriousTunesReverenceInwardNeedlesFactualRapport
Author:Lawrence Durrell
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“…I once found a list of diseases as yet unclassified by medical science, and among these there occurred the word Islomania, which was described as a rare but by no means unknown affliction of spirit. There are people…who find islands somehow irresistible. The mere knowledge that they are on an island, a little world surrounded by the sea, fills them with an indescribable intoxication. These born “islomanes”…are direct descendents of the Atlanteans”

PeopleWorldMeanLittlesSpiritFoundBornSeaDiseaseDirectMereMedicalListsIslandsAfflictionIrresistibleIntoxicationIndescribableMedical Science
Book:Reflections on a Marine Venus: A Companion to the Landscape of Rhodes
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“I have been thinking about the girl I met last night in the mirror: dark on the marble-ivory white: glossy black hair: deep suspiring eyes in which one's glances sink because they are nervous, curious, turned to sexual curiosity.”

ThinkingHas BeensEyeLastsNightGirlBlackDarkWhiteHairMetsMirrorsCuriosityNervousCuriousGlancesLast NightMarbleIvoryBlack Hair
Book:The Alexandria Quartet: Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea
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“I have decided to leave Clea’s last letter un-answered. I no longer wish to coerce anyone, to make promises, to think of life in terms of compacts, resolutions, covenants. It will be up to Clea to interpret my silence according to her own needs and desires, to come to me if she has need or not, as the case may be. Does not everything depend on our interpretation of the silence around us?”

IfsThinkingNeedsMayDoeLastsDesireWishTermSilenceCasesDependsPromiseLettersDecidedInterpretationResolutionCovenantCoerce
Book:The Alexandria Quartet: Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea
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“She took kisses like so many coats of paint […] how long and how vainly I searched for excuses which might make her amorality if not palatable at lest understandable. I realize now the time I wasted in this way; instead of enjoying her and turning aside from these preoccupations with the thought, ‘She is untrustworthy as she is beautiful. She takes love as plants do water, lightly, thoughtlessly.”

IfsWayLongMightBeautifulEnjoyWaterRealizingKissingPlantPaintExcuseCoatsPreoccupationUntrustworthyShe Is BeautifulAmorality
Book:Justine: By Lawrence Durrell
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