Turtles All the Way Down

The world is already constituted, but also never completely consituted; in the first case we are acted upon, in the second we are open to an infinite number of possibilities.

- Phenomenology of Perception (1962)

If on the other hand we admit that all these ‘projections’, all these ‘associations’, all these ‘transferences’ are based on some intrinsic characteristic of the object, the ‘human world’ ceases to be a metaphor and becomes once more what it really is, the seat and as it were the homeland of our thoughts.

- Phenomenology of Perception (1962)

The body is the vehicle of being in the world, and having a body is, for a living creature, to be intervolved in a definite environment, to identify oneself with certain projects and be continually committed to them.

- Phenomenology of Perception (1962)

Everybody maintains an identity that is in part counterfeit, and we all devote considerable time and energy to perpetuating the fraud and selling it to others.

- The Body Silent (1987)

Of course I stole the title of this talk [‘Why I Write’], from George Orwell.  One reason I stole it was that I like the sound of the words: Why I Write.  There you have three short unambiguous words that share a sound, and the sound they share is this:

I, I, I.

In many ways writing is the act of saying I, of imposing oneself upon other people, of saying listen to me, see it my way, change your mind.

underthepile:

You must convince yourself that you are working in clay and not marble, on paper and not eternal bronze; let that first sentence be as stupid as it wishes. No one will rush out and print it as it stands. Just put it down; then another.

(Source: notforrobots.blogspot.com)

Tourette’s teaches you what people will ignore and forget, teaches you to see the reality-knitting mechanism people employ to tuck away the intolerable, the incongruous, the disruptive—it teaches you this because you’re the one lobbing the intolerable, incongruous, and disruptive their way.

- Motherless Brooklyn (1999)

[O]ur mistake is in thinking that the wide range of humanity represents aberration when in fact it represents just what it is: range. Nature is not two little notes on a child’s flute; Nature is more like Aretha Franklin: vast, magnificent, capricious—occasionally hilarious—and infinitely varied.

- Normal: Transsexual CEOs, Crossdressing Cops, and Hermaphrodites with Attitude (2002)

Mike comes out, as Mimi, his biceps and deltoids gleaming above and below black latex straps, the muscles contrasting with the now small waist. He grins and strikes a pose. He sees his wife and freezes in the doorway, no longer friendly, blunt Mike, not yet wild party-girl Heidi, but a Heidi-in-waiting, hoping that his wife will give him permission to become.

- Normal: Transsexual CEOs, Crossdressing Cops, and Hermaphrodites with Attitude (2002)

I thought that it was rude to ask people about the working condition of their genitals, constructed or otherwise.

- Normal: Transsexual CEOs, Crossdressing Cops, and Hermaphrodites with Attitude (2002)