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Quote by Maggie Shipstead

“...I thought about how the medium of music is time, how if time stopped, a painting would exist unchanged but music would vanish, like a wave without an ocean. [Hadley Baxter]”

Quote by Maggie Shipstead

Work

Great Circle

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

Maggie Shipstead
Maggie Shipstead

Maggie Shipstead is an American author born in 1983. Her works are known for their delicate emotional descriptions and profound thematic explorations. Her debut novel, 'The Kapua‘a', was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 2011 and won the O. Henry Prize. Shipstead's writing often focuses on family, identity, and deep questions about human existence. more

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“The empire of the sky occupies territory emptied of vitality. Heavenly imperialism aims at biological neutrality. How does music suck our blood? Man cannot live without support in space. But music annihilates space completely. The only art capable of bringing comfort, yet it opens up more wounds than all the others! Music is the sound track of askesis. Could one make love after Bach? Not even after Handel, whose unearthliness does not have a heavenly perfume. Music is a tomb of delights, beatitude which buries us. Saintliness also draws blood. We lose it in direct proportion to our longing for heaven. The roads to heaven have been worn smooth by all the erring instincts. Indeed, heaven was born of these errors.”