Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by B.A. McRae

Quote by B.A. McRae

Work

The World Ends Christmas Day

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

B.A. McRae

Browse famous quotes and profile details for B.A. McRae. more

You May Also Like

“Mrs. De Ropp was Conradin's cousin and guardian, and in his eyes she represented those three-fifths of the world that are necessary and disagreeable and real; the other two-fifths, in perpetual antagonism to the foregoing, were summed up in himself and his imagination. One of these days Conradin supposed he would succumb to the mastering pressure of wearisome necessary things--such as illnesses and coddling restrictions and drawn-out dullness. Without his imagination, which was rampant under the spur of loneliness, he would have succumbed long ago.”

“They will say that I, having no literary skill, cannot properly express that which I desire to treat of, but they do not know that my subjects are to be dealt with by experience rather than by words. And [experience] has been the mistress of those who wrote well. And so, as mistress, I will cite her in all cases. Though I may not, like them, be able to quote other authors, I shall rely on that which is much greater and more worthy: on experience, the mistress of their masters.”

“Imagination is not obligated to let practicalities dominate, nor to judge itself in terms of dualistic language (true vs untrue; reality vs fantasy; good vs evil, etc.) The paradox of imagination is that it cannot imagine itself while it is experienced and it can't judge itself while experienced. 'I promise never to imagine cutting a kittens throat' is a ridiculous proposition. Most of us wish that people would not get pleasure imagining such things to the exclusion of anything else. Even so, imagining per se leaves no traces, while planning may do so and preforming always does. Imagining leave no traces, which is not the same as saying imagining has no effect.”