For Two Thousand Years

“There is doubtless such a thing as a ’national character’. In art, it is the lowest common denominator. The more specific the character, the more commonplace it is. That is why creation always requires overcoming such a character. An artist, if he is anything, is an individual. But to be an individual means embodying your own truths, suffering your own experiences, and inventing your own style. But these things can only occur by renouncing facility, and the most unfortunate facility comes from these so-called national characters, formed by the sedimentation of collective mediocrity, which lies there ready-made. National character is by definition that which remains in a culture after you have removed the personal effort involved in thinking, the personal experience of life and the triumph of individual creation.”

ArtIndividualityPolitical Philosophy

Book:For Two Thousand Years

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“I've always believed that the only defeats and victories that matter in life are those you lose or win alone, against yourself.”

VictorySolitudeDefeatAlone

Book:For Two Thousand Years

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“You see, the notion of "sin" is for me an abstraction. There's no such thing as "sin". There's only such a thing as "tactlessness".”

SinMoralsAbstraction

Book:For Two Thousand Years

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“I embraced her and she did not object at all. She let herself be kissed and kissed back, but coolly, without conviction, absently, as if she were smoking a cigarette.”

KissingKissSmoking

Book:For Two Thousand Years

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“Doesn't being over-familiar put you at a disadvantage? A more formal way of speaking doesn't just mean you're being polite, it's also a way of protecting yourself.”

MannersFamiliarityReserve

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“I have always believed it my right to have a locked door between me and the world, and to hold the key myself. Now look at it, kicked open. The doors are off their hinges, the portals unguarded, every cover blown.”

SolitudeSolitude As A Choice

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“I could reply. I could tell him that a metaphor is inadequate in the face of a bloodbath. That a Platonic inclination for dying doesn't balance out the serious decision to kill. That through the ages there has never been a great historical infamy committed for which there couldn't be found a symbol just as big, to justify it. That, in consequence, we would do well to pay attention to great certainties, to great invocations, to the great 'droughts' and 'rains'. That the temper of our most violent outbursts might benefit from a shade less enthusiasm. I could reply. But what good would it do? I have a simple, resigned, inexplicable sensation that everything that is happening is in the normal order of things and that I am awaiting a season that will come and pass -- because it has come and passed before.”

OppressionFutilityInevitabilityImpotence

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“What an odd thing a stranger is. A stranger sleeping next to you. I listen to his breathing as if it were his entire life, with its hidden processes, the pulsing of the blood in the tissues, with thousands of tiny hidden decays and combustions, which together create and maintain him.”

SleepStrangerStrangersStranger In My Bed

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“A stranger sleeps next to me, like a stone beside another stone.”

SleepStrangerSleepingStranger In My Bed

Book:For Two Thousand Years

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