The disparity between what people said life was and what I knew it to be unnerved me at times, but I swore that nothing would ever make me say life should be anything. Harold Brodkey More Quotes by Harold Brodkey More Quotes From Harold Brodkey I am sensible of the velocity of the moments, and entering that part of my head alert to the motion of the world I am aware that life was never perfect, never absolute. This bestows contentment, even a fearlessness. Harold Brodkey entering contentment perfect Memory, so complete and clear or so evasive, has to be ended, has to be put aside, as if one were leaving a chapel and bringing the prayer to an end in one's head. Harold Brodkey leaving prayer memories I distrust summaries, any kind of gliding through time, any too great a claim that one is in control of what one recounts; I think someone who claims to understand but is obviously calk, someone who claims to write with emotion recollected in tranquility, is a fool and a liar. To understand is to tremble. To recollect is to re-enter and be riven. ... I admire the authority of being on one's knees in front of the event. Harold Brodkey liars writing thinking the cold winds of insecurity... hadn't shredded the dreamy chrysalis of his childhood. He was still immersed in the dim, wet wonder of the folded wings that might open if someone loved him; he still hoped, probably, in a butterfly's unthinking way, for spring and warmth. How the wings ache, folded so, waiting; that is, they ache until they atrophy. Harold Brodkey butterfly spring wind If you like to read, sometimes it's interesting just to go and see what the reality is, of the word, of the seedy or not so seedy fiction writer, the drunk or sober poet... Sometimes you can go looking for illumination. Harold Brodkey illumination drunk reality Athletes have studied how to leap and how to survive the leap some of the time and return to the ground. They don't always do it well. But they are our philosophers of actual moments and the body and soul in them, and of our maneuvers in our emergencies and longings. Harold Brodkey health athlete exercise I have thousands of opinions still - but that is down from millions - and, as always, I know nothing. Harold Brodkey opinion stills knows Public radio is alive and kicking, it always has been Harold Brodkey kicking-it radio alive Often writing is like a struggle to get back to a kind of belated, quite impure virginity. Harold Brodkey kind struggle writing Me, my literary reputation is mostly abroad, but I am anchored here in New York. I can't think of any other place I'd rather die than here. Harold Brodkey anchors new-york thinking Almost the first thing I did when I became ill was to buy a truly good television set. Harold Brodkey ill television firsts I feel sorry for the man who marries you... because everyone thinks you're sweet and you're not. Harold Brodkey sorry home sweet But death's acquisitive instincts will win. Harold Brodkey instinct winning In our opposed forms of loneliness and self-recognition and recognition of the other, we touched each other often as we spoke; and on shore in explorations of the past, we strolled with our arms linked. Harold Brodkey loneliness self past I look upon another's insistence on the merits of his or her life - duties, intellect, accomplishment - and see that most of it is nonsense. Harold Brodkey merit accomplishment looks It bothers me that I won't live to see the end of the century, because, when I was young, in St. Louis, I remember saying to Marilyn, my sister by adoption, that that was how long I wanted to live: seventy years. Harold Brodkey adoption long years In New York one lives in the moment rather more than Socrates advised, so that at a party or alone in your room it will always be difficult to guess at the long term worth of anything. Harold Brodkey party new-york long Death is not soft-mouthed, vague-footed, nearby. It is in the hall. Harold Brodkey vague halls True stories, autobiographical stories, like some novels, begin long ago, before the acts in the account, before the birth of some of the people in the tale. Harold Brodkey long-ago stories people I was always crazy about New York, dependent on it, scared of it - well, it is dangerous - but beyond that there was the pressure of being young and of not yet having done work you really liked, trademark work, breakthrough work Harold Brodkey crazy done new-york
