A conjunction of quotations #7

by Ryland Walker Knight

— Midtown 120 Blues
1.
Stare. It is the way to educate your eye, and more. Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long.
— Walker Evans

2.
Color, at the moment, has, for me, a great importance, and I feel a kind of return to a complete commitment and love of color, and a sense of its relation to the human psyche. I think the kind of film that I have made and that I am most interested in is communicating with these basic sensuous elements of film. Color is also an important element in relation to sound; also how darkness and light are used in relation to color is different than in other visual media — all of these things interest me. We are creating structures and we are also presumably creating narratives that are not dramatic. The structures are more like the forms of other time-based or other measure media such as poetry or music.
— Robert Beavers

3.
There isn't enough mustard to spread on that hot dog.
— Billy North, about former teammate Reggie Jackson

4.
I mean, I brought you all the way out here. It's not like I'm the one who needs swimming lessons. And the fact that you're not even trying? Well that baffles me. Really. I mean, what are you afraid of? There's no sharks in here. Suppose a water dog comes walking down the tracks and sees you. What's he gonna say about you, land dog? I mean, if there's times in the world when it's time to take a chance, it's time right now to take a chance. What's this? Water. Get in it. It's just water. Listen, brother, this river goes two ways: that way, and that way. You know what I'm sayin? It's like a puzzle, with hands, if you think about it.
— Paul

5.
I make people laugh, which is a great gift, but I live in fear.
— Monica Vitti

6.
Being sad is not a crime.
— Arthur Russell

7.
And then but no matter what I do it gets worse and worse, it's there more and more, this filter drops down, and the feeling makes the fear of the feeling way worse, and after a couple weeks it's there all the time, the feeling, and I'm totally inside it, I'm in it and everything has to pass through it to get in, and I don't want to smoke any Bob, and I don't want to work, or go out, or read, or watch TP, or go out, or stay in, or either do anything or not do anything, I don't want anything except for the feeling to go away. But it doesn't. Part of the feeling is being like willing to do anything to make it go away. Understand that. Anything. Do you understand? It's not wanting to hurt myself it's wanting to not hurt.
— Kate Gompert

8.
O for a draught of vintage! that hath been
   Cool'd a long age in the deep-delvèd earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country-green,
   Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South!
   Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
       With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
             And purple-stainèd mouth;
   That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
       And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
   What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
   Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs,
   Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
       Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
             And leaden-eyed despairs;
   Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
       Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
   Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
   Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night,
   And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
       Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays
             But here there is no light,
   Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
       Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.
— John Keats

9.
The true drama of men consists in the fact that they have always seen the reasons for their anxiety in the external world, defining them as evidence of an enemy structure to struggle against. Men are now on the verge of discovering that the essence of the human dilemma lies within themselves, in that rigid psychological structure of theirs that can no longer hold back its destructive cathexis. ... The self-criticism developed in our culture seems to have taken a path of license and recklessness. Men must leave this path to put an end to their historical role as protagonist. This is the change we are advocating. ... Self-criticism must give way to imagination.
— Carla Lonzi

10.
Jerry: In a half an hour, we'll no longer be Mr. and Mrs. Funny, isn't it.
Lucy: Yes, it's funny that everything's the way it is on account of the way you feel.
Jerry: Huh?
Lucy: Well, I mean, if you didn't feel that way you do, things wouldn't be the way they are, would they? I mean, things could be the same if things were different.
Jerry: But things are the way you made them.
Lucy: Oh, no. No, things are the way you think I made them. I didn't make them that way at all. Things are just the same as they always were, only, you're the same as you were, too, so I guess things will never be the same again.
— The Warriners

11.
Why keep on seeding the chairs
When the future is night and no one knows what
He wants? It would probably be best though
To hang on to these words if only
For the rhyme. Little enough,
But later on, at the summit, it won't
Matter so much that they fled like arrows
From the taut string of a restrained
Consciousness, only that they mattered.
For the present, our not-knowing
Delights them. Probably they won't be devoured
By the lions, like the others, but be released
After a certain time. Meanwhile, keep
Careful count of the rows of windows overlooking
The deep blue sky behind the factory: we'll need them.
— John Ashbery

12.
I like to treat my film as a biological entity. The prints have been deposited, donated or bequested to archives and museums around the world, with the legally stipulated proviso that the film will not be reproduced in any form nor projected with a recorded soundtrack. I hope they will abide to my wishes, but even if they don't, the reproductions will not be handcoloured prints.

The decision to destroy the negative was made back in 2000, when I started the project, so I had plenty of time to get used to the idea. Still, the destruction of the negative was a very emotional moment, something like the ritual slaughter of an animal. I saw one in Central Asia and was struck by the depth of the feelings attached to the gesture.
— Paolo Cherchi Usai

13.
I’m not a believer that hardship makes people stronger, but I do think that too much of certain things can make them weaker. Strong people can be distracted by things that come too easy. Maintaining a career nowadays is extraordinarily complicated, even if you’re just doing your work and showing up for required occasions. You can waste an amazing amount of energy, time and goodwill by chasing after stuff that’s not worth chasing after. Really wise artists know how to make dramatic appearances and how to make dramatic disappearances.
— Robert Storr

14.
Si vous ne m'aimez pas, je peux vous dire que je ne vous aime pas non plus.*
— Maurice Pialat
* If you don't like me, I can tell you I don't like you either.

15.
[The buildings] look normal enough, but they are designed to fall down, like fat men at the opera falling asleep into someone's lap, shortly after the last rivet is driven, the last forms removed from the newly set allegorical statue.
— Thomas Pynchon