A Cena Estética

O vento do oriente é diferente. É outra matéria este vento. Não arrasta consigo melancolias e detritos humanos, antes os congela num tempo de relógio, nas falanges dos dedos que engrossam.
Aqui flutuou entre realidades, entre falsos rios e luz dourada. Aqui viu o único sol que se pode olhar de frente, reflectido em vigas de metal, refulgente e passageiro. Porque no oriente a ilusão é matéria. Foi no oriente que escorregou nas pedras polidas e caiu sobre o coração. Em que viu a mala atropelada por pneus negros e contemplou um céu terroro. Foi aí que a cara se contorceu de assombro. Os sapatos voam. Perdeu os lábios no acidente. O alcatrão escureceu-lhe a pele e a capacidade de chorar. Os sapatos sempre voam. Vassouras indiferentes juntaram-lhe os pedaços. Foi novamente colada, mas agora percorre o oriente a medo, porque afinal os sapatos voam.

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Though such sensory blindness is often rather welcome […], it is worth pointing out that feeling things (which usually means feeling them painfully) is at some level linked to the acquisition of knowledge.

The finest thing about betrayal and jealousy – its ability to generate the intellectual motivation necessary to investigate the hidden sides of others.

Only that which bears the imprint of our choice, our taste, our uncertainty, our desire and our weakness can be beautiful.

Our vanity, our passions, our spirit of imitation, our abstract intelligence, our habits have long been at work, and it is the task of art to undo this work of theirs [...].

Because the rhythm of a conversation makes no allowance for dead periods, because the presence of others calls for continuous responses, we are left to regret the inanity of what we say, and the missed opportunity of what we do not.

The happiness which may emerge from taking a second look is central to Proust’s therapeutic conception, it reveals the extent to which our dissatisfactions may be the result of failing to look properly at our lives rather than the result of anything deficient about them.

[…] blame memory rather than what is remembered.

The limits to eternity didn’t lie specifically with love. They lay in the general difficulty of maintaining an appreciative relationship with anything or anyone that was always around.

A picture’s beauty does not depend on the things portrayed in it.