"What I do not want in life [...] is a sense of security; the moment a person knows security, his senses are dulled - and he begins to die. I also do not want many pleasures in life; I believe the more pleasures you get out of living, the more fear you have of dying." Cus D'Amato from Gay Talese, "The Loser."
(I forgot to mention this when I wrote, weeks ago, about
Reading The Fights).
I think that this is a great quote which just maybe really encapsulates the man himself. AAnd although this resonates with I tend to fluctuate in my own asceticism and opinion of asceticism. Such a way of life I think is more powerful when it is not, in some veiled way, a kind opf self-torture or self-punishment. I think that I believe in pleasures but I want to choose my pleasures carefully and indulge in them in a considered way as I acknowledge the inherent dangers of desire.
Whereas I can really relate with the buddhist critique of desire I have also loved this quote from the Italian autonomist movement of the 1970s:
"We are desiring machines, machines of war."
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Well, I am closing in on the last few empty pages of a journal, containing for the most part quotations from books that I found interesting, which dates back to February 3 2004. Maybe for the next fews weeks I will pick a quote of the day sort of thing to share out to the masses who read my blog. What follows is the very first quote dating back to day 1.
To live in Wales
is to love sheep
and to be afraid
of dragons.
from "A Welsh Wordscape." Peter Finch,
Selected Poems (15)
