To be able to forget means sanity. Jack London More Quotes by Jack London More Quotes From Jack London The function of man is to live, not to exist. Jack London short-life atoms men I'd rather sing one wild song and burst my heart with it, than live a thousand years watching my digestion and being afraid of the wet. Jack London heart song years I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. Jack London meteors sparks london A good joke will sell quicker than a good poem, and, measured in sweat and blood, will bring better remuneration. Jack London remuneration sweat blood The aim of life was meat. Life itself was meat. Life lived on life. There were the eaters and the eaten. Jack London aim-of-life aim meat And how have I lived? Frankly and openly, though crudely. I have not been afraid of life. I have not shrunk from it. I have taken it for what it was at its own valuation. And I have not been ashamed of it. Just as it was, it was mine. Jack London afraid-of-life ashamed taken It is a simple matter to see the obvious, to do the expected. The tendency of the individual life is to be static rather than dynamic, and this tendency is made into a propulsion by civilization, where the obvious only is seen, and the unexpected rarely happens. When the unexpected does happen, however, and when it is of sufficiently grave import, the unfit perish. They do not see what is not obvious, are unable to do the unexpected, are incapable of adjusting their well-grooved lives to other and strange grooves. In short, when they come to the end of their own groove, they die. Jack London adjusting simple civilization The grapes on a score of rolling hills are red with autumn flame. Across Sonoma Mountain wisps of sea fog are stealing. The afternoon sun smoulders in the drowsy sky. I have everything to make me glad I am alive. I am filled with dreams and mysteries. I am all sun and air and sparkle. I am vitalized, organic. Jack London autumn air dream Don't write too much. Concentrate your sweat on one story, rather than dissipate it over a dozen. Jack London sweat stories writing There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive. This ecstasy, this forgetfulness of living, comes to the artist, caught up and out of himself in a sheet of flame; it comes to the soldier, war-mad in a stricken field and refusing quarter; and it came to Buck, leading the pack, sounding the old wolf-cry, straining after the food that was alive and that fled swiftly before him through the moonlight. Jack London artist war thinking I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. Jack London writing-words atoms sleep The trouble with him was that he was without imagination. He was quick and alert in the things of life, but only in the things, and not in the significances. Fifty degrees below zero meant eighty-odd degrees of frost. Such fact impressed him as being cold and uncomfortable, and that was all. It did not lead him to meditate upon his frailty as a creature of temperature, and upon man's frailty in general, able only to live within certain narrow limits of heat and cold; and from there on it did not lead him to the conjectural field of immortality and man's place in the universe. Jack London zero imagination men Life is so short. I would rather sing one song than interpret the thousand. Jack London life-is-so-short life-is song Don't loaf and invite inspiration; light out after it with a club, and if you don't get it you will nonetheless get something that looks remarkably like it. Jack London light inspiration writing Pursuit and possession are accompanied by states of consciousness so wide apart that they can never be united. Jack London pursuit consciousness states Man rarely places a proper valuation upon his womankind, at least not until deprived of them. Jack London valuation deprived men Deep in the forest a call was sounding, and as often as he heard this call, mysteriously thrilling and luring, he felt compelled to turn his back upon the fire and the beaten earth around it, and to plunge into the forest, and on and on, he knew not where or why; nor did he wonder where or why, the call sounding imperiously, deep in the forest. Jack London earth fire forests Age is never so old as youth would measure it. Jack London youth age If cash comes with fame, come fame; if cash comes without fame, come cash. Jack London cash ifs fame You have grudged the very fire in your house because the wood cost overmuch!" he cried. "You have grudged life. To live cost overmuch, and you have refused to pay the price. Your life has been like a cabin where the fire is out and there are no blankets on the floor." He signaled to a slave to fill his glass, which he held aloft. "But I have lived. And I have been warm with life as you have never been warm. It is true, you shall live long. But the longest nights are the cold nights when a man shivers and lies awake. My nights have been short, but I have slept warm Jack London men night lying
