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Quote by L.R. Knost

“She is fragile as the morning dew melting in the warmth of a child's smile; stirring at the lonely, lovely waft of a butterfly's wings; tender as the curve of a wildflower petal. She is fierce as a summer storm now raging against the fiery sky; now raining tears to soothe the sun-scorched earth. She is soft as a midnight breeze swaying to the sound of waves breaking on distant shores; whispering comfort to a world steeped in the dark night of inhumanity. She is brilliant as the rising Phoenix lifting the suffering from the ashes; her own suffering woven into wings of fire in the long watches of the night. She is serene and turbulent as the silvered water hiding currents unknown beneath the gentle gaze of a human who has walked a thousand miles and still has more to go.”

Quote by L.R. Knost

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L.R. Knost

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“The public make use of the classics of a country as a means of checking the progress of Art. They degrade the classics into authorities.... A fresh mode of Beauty is absolutely distasteful to them, and whenever it appears they get so angry and bewildered that they always use two stupid expressions--one is that the work of art is grossly unintelligible; the other, that the work of art is grossly immoral. What they mean by these words seems to me to be this. When they say a work is grossly unintelligible, they mean that the artist has said or made a beautiful thing that is new; when they describe a work as grossly immoral, they mean that the artist has said or made a beautiful thing that is true.”

“I do want something more. I’m not content to be happy, that’s not what I’m cut out to be, not what fate intended for me. I’m destined to be the very opposite. I had more than my fair share of unhappiness but my unhappiness was stupid, barren... Because if I wanted to die, and I did, I ought not to have been so afraid of death. The unhappiness I’m in need of and longing for is different. It’s of a kind that will make me hunger for suffering and lust for death. That’s the sort of unhappiness, or happiness, I am waiting for. There is nothing wrong with this happiness. On the contrary, I love it, feel grateful for it. It’s as beautiful as a sunny day in a summer of rain. But I sense that it can’t last, so it is barren too, this happiness. It is satisfying, but satisfaction is not the nourishment I need. It’s enough to fill Steppenwolf’s stomach and send him to sleep, but it’s not the kind of happiness to die for. I am very satisfied with my happiness. It’s something I can live with for quite a while yet, but if it occasionally deserts me for an hour or so, allowing me to wake from my sleep and experience a longing for something, what I long for with all my being is not this happiness, not that it should last for ever. Rather, I long to experience suffering again, only more exquisitely, more richly this time. What I yearn for are the kinds of suffering that will make me ready and willing to die.”

“There is a temptation when one has suffered to say that one has suffered enough. As in, no more. The temptation is to go about creating a form of protection, to insist that you be kept safe from further harm. “Harm” under these conditions becomes nebulous; anything from threats of violence to reminders of past hurts to even experiencing discomfort can meet the criteria of “harmful.”

“Mr. Reese had told him that life, at its core, was a cruel burden because we had the knowledge that we were born to die. We were born with innocent eyes and those eyes had to see pain and death and deceit and violence and heartache. If we were lucky we lived long enough to see most everything we love die. But, he said, being honorable and truthful took a little of the sting out of it. It made life bearable. Mr. Reese said liars and cowards were the worst people to know because they broke your heart in a world that is built to break your heart. They poured gas on an already cruel and barely controllable fire.”

“There are the stubborn stumps of shame, grief that remains unsolvable after all the years, a bag of stones that goes with one wherever one goes and however the hour may call for dancing and for light feet. energies of the world, better than anger, better than bitterness and, because more interesting, more alleviating. And there is the thing that one does, the needle one plies, the work, and within that work a chance to take thoughts that are hot and formless and to place them slowly and with meticulous effort into some shapely heat-retaining form, even as the gods, or nature, or the soundless wheels of time have made forms all across the soft, curved universe—that is to say, having chosen to claim my life, I have made for myself, out of work and love, a handsome life.”