#224

“Any biography is chance, and, beginning at conception, chance – the tyranny of contingency – is everything” (Roth, 2010: 242-243).

ROTH, Philip (2010). Nemesis. London: Jonathan Cape.

#223

“A fool in love like that will blow
The sun and moon and all the stars
To amuse his sweetheart an hour or so.” (id, 101)

#222

“(...) While it bubbled away

I could build a thousand bridges, I daresay.

Not only art, not only science

Are needful for it, also patience.

Quiet spirits work for years, only long length

Of time will give a subtle fermentation strength.” (id, 82)

#221

“Go on, despise science and reason,
Highest of all the powers that humans have,
And only let the lying spirit give
You strength in works of magic and illusion.
Then without question you are mine –
Fate's gift to him's a spirit always driving
On and on, allowed free reign,
And in its headlong striving
It overleaps the joys of earthly living.” (id, 62)

#220

“The way you look at things, my friend

Is just the usual way they get looked at.

We need a cleverer way than that

Before life's pleasures end” (id, 61).

#219

“Fire and blood we have and copious

Birds and beasts and gulphs and rocky tors.

Whithin the girdle of these walls confined

Pace out Creation's whole round

And with a measured haste propel

Yourselves from heaven through the world to hell” (Goethe, 2005: 10).

GOETHE, Johann von (2005). Faust, Part I. Translated by David Constantine. London: Penguin Books.