Contradicta








If the essence of life consists of learning to love, why wouldn't every other effort to offer lasting pleasure to others be guided by the same principle?




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Unless accompanied by an ability to love, thinking is mostly painful.

Contradicta










Like so many other endeavors in contemporary life, music too often tries to subdue the beasts instead of charming them like Debussy.




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A light touch may not hold things as long- yet this way they are more likely to return.

Contradicta








Powerful feelings perpetuate themselves by means of a trick- they promise- or threaten- to expand infinitely and eternally. Through moods, they try to install themselves indefinitely. But a mood is a replica of an emotion, only a product of the feelings that generated it.


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An hour of regret is enough for three lifetimes.

Contradicta










Your doubts might be the seeds of unknown flowers, if only you would replant them among your ideas instead of your presentiments.


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Words express meanings but their rhythms express their intentions.

Contradicta







Delight is the first language to be understood and the last to be forgotten. But from birth until death the meaning of pain rests opaque and obscure whose clearest expression is silence or a scream.



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Anyone can think of clever things to say but can you explain to yourself exactly what you were feeling first thing this morning?

Contradicta










Mood, reminiscence, hunch, whimsy, expectation, afterthought- silhouettes that flower into portraits.



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Zero wails like a siren.

Contradicta









Kindness might be blindness when the cruel rule.




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Good brings about evil by angering the cruel; evil creates good by alarming the kind.

Contradicta

A flame bursts into being; a wave rises and falls; sounds enter the air and, soon enough, they fade away. Each event leaves an immediate and resonating emotion for awhile. There is no thread, no connection. Only final emotions, among the gratitude that somehing existed, exists, and the memory; we look for a pattern, a story- surely we will remember one- but- soon enough we see this is once again a game, child's play-which is enough but can never be complete, only somehow a cloud from which emerges another burst or perhaps some notes behind a pattern of spray.


**********************


Not much traceable in the thread- in the sands where the patch of fog settled there- maybe a bit of moonlight wrapped in the fog-no message- more like a brief and complete arrival on stage, a definable face or presence followed by its immediate disappearance.




[with a wave to Claude Debussy and Nico Vassilakis]

Contradicta









Morning remembers and explains everything but understands and forgives nothing.




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Complexity's cautions dance dolefully amidst simplicity's smiling certainties.

Contradicta









Until you try hope remains in limited supply.



********************



Let your arms grow longer every day and there will be more to hold.

Contradicta



First I embraced my doubts like they were my closest friends and they betrayed me. Then I learned to send them away quickly, with few words, like a known enemy, and they deceived me. Now I greet them warily and entertain them for awhile hoping to persuade them to tell me why they came. Until I extract their secrets-even if I banish and forget them- they will haunt me to the end of my days



******************

You can't be sure until it's done but then how you did it is already a memory.

Contradicta









Sadness and joy are not two different songs, but two different refrains of the same song.




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When you can't find the time to get lost in thought you lose your mind.

Contradicta






Who can believe the bellowing blasts of bravery's brass band realizing they are mainly meant to crush or subdue the stricken sighs of insignificance within?




*****************




These days life explodes like a thunderclap but still the clouds move gently.

Contradicta







Once again, disappointment performs its ardent solo when suddenly, with a rumble of drums and a burst of violins, the dreamer is released from a melancholy sojourn in the past.




**********************



Every feeling evokes its reminiscent melody and its tiny surprise.

Contradicta









Happiness is divulged with few words, misery demands a mouthful.




**************************



In today's house I am the host, but I am a guest in the dwelling of yesterday.

Contradicta








Those who do not listen are usually the most desperate to be heard and the least concerned about whether they were.




**********************



Thought is what remains after all the interruptions.

Contradicta








There are three things in life well worth waiting for: sublime passion, a superb meal and an inspired idea. Right now I'd settle for a good book.




**********************


Maturity: the state of mind that allows one to love a friend even when that friend does not admire one's writing.

Contradicta








One truth will produce a thousand lies, one kindness a thousand hurts, one success a thousand uncertainties.




*******************



Of all the potions, balms and drugs there is no more powerful elixir than a smile.

Contradicta











Sufficient exagerration can make any detail of experience fascinating -or frightening- depending on the light.


******************


"The best" is the beast.

Contradicta







There can be no secrets between friends when your silence confides as much as your words.






****************************



Coincidence is a wink in the eye of eternity.

[For Alan Davies]



**
I ran into Alan at St Mark's Bookstore yesterday. He asked me what book I was buying. I showed him-"The Neurotic Personality of Our Time* by Karen Horney. He showed me the book he was carrying in his briefcase, the one he is reading with so much pleasure now: same book. He had purchased his hardbound copy at the Strand. I told him I was carrying in my briefcase, Horney's *Our Inner Conflicts*. We had never discussed our shared admiration for this terrfic writer.