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W Quotes

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All W Quotes

“When writing on the subject of civilization, one must understand that the ability to read or write a European language does not create a superior civilization. Nor does the ability to point exploding sticks that cause instantaneous death or injury, or to launch missiles that could blow the world apart, provide a moral basis to declare one’s culture more civilized than another. The question to ask when judging the values and merits of a civilization must always be: “How does the civilization respond to the human needs of its population?” By this standard, because they created social and political systems that ensured personal liberty, justice and social responsibility, most Amerindian civilizations must be given very high marks. When making an unbiased assessment, and comparing the values of early American civilizations with those of European civilizations, one cannot but find that the suppression and wanton destruction of American civilizations by European civilizations was in many ways a case of inferior civilizations overcoming superior ones. This is especially true in the area of respect for human rights. Although they were not as technologically advanced as the Europeans were by 1492, many Amerindian Nations possessed democratic political practices that were light years ahead.”

“When writing personal letters I have sometimes gone too far. Maybe belief and trust in another’s love is an obsessional desire to control a wayward eyewitness. I could go on and on about the origins of transference via H. D. and The Sword Went Out to Sea but a foreword is a like a fish tank so there isn’t room here for leaping dolphins, solo séances, hallucinatory visions, dead pilots, the atomic bomb, nervous breakdowns, the Küsnacht clinic March–November 1946. Sigh sough rough wind world war.”

“When writing, there are some scenes that are emotionally overwhelming. They completely overcome the author, and only when they do this can they cause a similar reaction in the reader. Through this, the author gets to experience multiple lives. If a character's life flashes before their eyes, it flashes before the author's eyes too, and he or she remembers it as his or her own. With reading, we get to live other lives vicariously, and this is doubly so with writing. It is like a lucid dream, where we guide the outcome. In this, we don't merely write *about* a character -- we momentarily *become* them, and walk as they walk, think as they think, and do as they do. When we return to our own life, we might return a little shaken, likely a little stronger, hopefully a little wiser. What is certain is that we return better, because experiencing the lives of others makes us understand their aims and dreams, their fears and foils, the challenges and difficulties, and joys and triumphs, that they face. It helps us grow and empathise, and see all the little pictures that make up the bigger one we see from the omniscience of the narrator.”

“When written in Chinese, the word 'crisis' is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.”