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Quote by Joyce Cary

“B-but, Mr Jimson, I w-want to be an artist.' 'Of course you do,' I said, 'everybody does once. But they get over it, thank God, like the measles and the chickenpox. Go home and go to bed and take some hot lemonade and put on three blankets and sweat it out.' 'But Mr J-Jimson, there must be artists.' 'Yes, and lunatics and lepers, but why go and live in an asylum before you're sent for? If you find life a bit dull at home,' I said, 'and want to amuse yourself, put a stick of dynamite in the kitchen fire, or shoot a policeman. Volunteer for a test pilot, or dive off Tower Bridge with five bob's worth of roman candles in each pocket. You'd get twice the fun at about one-tenth of the risk.”

Quote by Joyce Cary

Book:THE HORSE'S MOUTH
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THE HORSE'S MOUTH

The Horse's Mouth is a satirical novel that delves into the complexities of human nature, particularly the tendency to deceive oneself. The narrative is centered around a writer who struggles with authenticity and the search for truth in his own life and work. more

Author

Joyce Cary
Joyce Cary

Joyce Cary was a British novelist known for his intricate explorations of human relationships and the social dynamics of his era. Born on December 7, 1888, in Bombay, India, Cary spent a significant part of his life in Nigeria before returning to England. His most celebrated novel, 'Mister Johnson,' was published in 1932 and is regarded as a classic of English literature. more

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“...I thought, with a certain amount of sorrow, how much enormous talent there must be in the world for nature simply to toss it away so arbitrarily! But nature could not care less what we think about it, and as far as talent is concerned, there is such an excess that our artists will soon become their own audiences, and audiences made up of ordinary people will no longer exist.”

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“Some centuries ago they had Raphael and Michael Angelo; now we have Mr. Paul Delaroche, and all because we are progressing. You brag of your Opera houses; ten Opera houses the size of yours could dance a saraband in a Roman amphitheatre. Even Mr. Martin, with his lame tiger and his poor gouty lion, as drowsy as a subscriber to the Gazette, cuts a pretty small figure by the side of a gladiator from antiquity. What are your benefit performances, lasting till two in the morning, compared with those games which lasted a hundred days, with those performances in which real ships fought real battles on a real sea; when thousands of men earnestly carved each other -- turn pale, O heroic Franconi! -- when, the sea having withdrawn, the desert appeared, with its raging tigers and lions, fearful supernumeraries that played but once; when the leading part was played by some robust Dacian or Pannonian athlete, whom it would often have been might difficult to recall at the close of the performance, whose leading lady was some splendid and hungry lioness of Numidia starved for three days? Do you not consider the clown elephant superior to Mlle. Georges? Do you believe Taglioni dances better than did Arbuscula, and Perrot better than Bathyllus? Admirable as is Bocage, I am convinced Roscius could have given him points. Galeria Coppiola played young girls' parts, when over one hundred years old; it is true that the oldest of our leading ladies is scarcely more than sixty, and that Mlle. Mars has not even progressed in that direction. The ancients had three or four thousand gods in whom they believed, and we have but one, in whom we scarcely believe. That is a strange sort of progress. Is not Jupiter worth a good deal more than Don Juan, and is he not a much greater seducer? By my faith, I know not what we have invented, or even wherein we have improved.”

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Book:Mademoiselle de Maupin
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