I really don't know enough about the structure of fiction. Conrad Aiken More Quotes by Conrad Aiken More Quotes From Conrad Aiken It is precisely the sort of thing I am always trying to do in my writing -- to present my unhappy reader with a wide-ranged chaos -- of actions and reactions, thoughts, memories and feelings -- in the vain hope that at the end he will see that the whole thing represents only one moment, one feeling, one person. A raging, trumpeting jungle of associations, and then I announce at the end of it, with a gesture of despair, "This is I! Conrad Aiken always-trying writing memories I ascend from darkness Conrad Aiken keys morning wind Ghostly above us in lamplight the towers gleam ... and after a while they will fall to dust and rain; or else we will tear them down with impatient hands; and hew rock out of the earth, and build them again. Conrad Aiken dust rain fall We were all born of flesh, in a flare of pain. We do not remember the red roots whence we rose, but we know that we rose and walked, that after a while we shall lie down again. Conrad Aiken pain roots lying One cricket said to another - Conrad Aiken ridiculous hate love I love you, what star do you live on? Conrad Aiken i-love-you stars love-you Poetry will absorb and transmute, as it always has done, and glorify, all that we can know. Conrad Aiken glorify done knows I always hankered to be a composer - I was mad about music, though I never studied seriously, and can't read a note. But I learned to play the piano and became pretty skillful at improvisation, especially after a drop or two. Conrad Aiken piano play two Time in the heart and sequence in the brain-- Conrad Aiken brain heart time I think there's an enormous lot of talent around, and somewhere amongst these I'm sure that something will emerge, given time. Conrad Aiken talent given thinking How shall we praise the magnificence of the dead, Conrad Aiken magnificence dust men I think we've come to a kind of splinter period in poetry. These tiny little bright fragments of observation - and not produced under sufficient pressure - some of it's very skillful, but I don't think there's anywhere a discernible major poet in the process of emerging; or if he is, I ain't seen him. Conrad Aiken splinters littles thinking Should I not hear, as I lie down in dust, Conrad Aiken dust death lying I'm not in the least Southern; I'm entirely New England. Conrad Aiken new-england england southern I began by doing book reviews on the typewriter and then went over to short stories on the machine, meanwhile sticking to pencil for poetry. Conrad Aiken machines typewriters book I think it's very useful to be insulated from your surrounds, because it gives you your inviolate privacy, without pressures, so that you can just be yourself. Conrad Aiken being-yourself giving thinking I do believe in this evolution of consciousness as the only thing which we can embark on, or in fact, willy-nilly, are embarked on; and along with that will go the spiritual discoveries and, I feel, the inexhaustible wonder that one feels, that opens more and more the more you know. It's simply that this increasing knowledge constantly enlarges your kingdom and the capacity for admiring and loving the universe. Conrad Aiken spiritual discovery believe The wind shrieks, the wind grieves; It dashes the leaves on walls, it whirls then again; And the enormous sleeper vaguely and stupidly dreams And desires to stir, to resist a ghost of pain. Conrad Aiken wall pain dream The days, the nights, flow one by one above us. The hours go silently over our lifted faces. We are like dreamers who walk beneath a sea. Beneath high walls we flow in the sun together. We sleep, we wake, we laugh, we pursue, we flee. Conrad Aiken wall sleep night Variations: II Green light, from the moon, Pours over the dark blue trees, Green light from the autumn moon Pours on the grass ... Green light falls on the goblin fountain Where hesitant lovers meet and pass. They laugh in the moonlight, touching hands, They move like leaves on the wind ... I remember an autumn night like this, And not so long ago, When other lovers were blown like leaves, Before the coming of snow. Conrad Aiken autumn fall moving
