"The duende, then, is a power, not a work. It is a struggle, not a thought"

--- Spanish poet and theater director Federico Garcia Lorca, in a lecture in Buenos Aires titled “Play and Theory of the Duende”, quoted in "What is the hardest word to translate from Spanish?" dictionary.com's the hot word column, February 22, 2011

In context:

In the dictionary, the word is listed as “elf” or “magic.” However, in actual practice, when the word shows up in text, it is rarely in the context of a woodland spirit, although that is where the word’s etymology begins. . . .

In 1933 Spanish poet and theater director Federico Garcia Lorca gave a lecture in Buenos Aires titled “Play and Theory of the Duende” in which he addressed the fiery spirit behind what makes great performance stir the emotions:

“The duende, then, is a power, not a work. It is a struggle, not a thought. I have heard an old maestro of the guitar say, ”The duende is not in the throat; the duende climbs up inside you, from the soles of the feet.’ Meaning this: it is not a question of ability, but of true, living style, of blood, of the most ancient culture, of spontaneous creation … everything that has black sounds in it, has duende.”

"... the world is alive and in dread; it is, as the ancient Greek philosopher Thales claimed, 'full of gods.'"

--- Painter Madeleine Avirov, in the opening sentence of an essay about her experience of poetry, in the January 2011 issue of Poetry.

In context:

When I wake in the night in fear I regain the knowledge that no child lacks: the world is alive and in dread; it is, as the ancient Greek philosopher Thales claimed, “full of gods.” The time is invariably between three and four in the morning.

This belief is attributed to Thales, according to Wikipedia, in Aristotle, De Anima, 411a7, and for other ancient sources see the discussion in Kirk and Raven, The Presocratic Philosophers, 93-7. A Crandall University philosophy department web page portrays it thus: "Thales' view seems to be as follows. As most Greeks, he holds that soul is the cause of all motion, even of inanimate objects. Thus, since there is motion, there must be a soul causing each instance of motion. . . . He then takes a further step and concludes that soul, or the cause of motion, is a god." Not quite as poetic as Avirov's gloss...

"Babies are like the [R&D] division of the human species and we're production and marketing"

--- Philosopher and psychologist Alison Gopnik, in conversation with Alan Saunders on ABC Radio National's The Philosopher's Zone, 29 Jan 2011

In context:

Alan Saunders: So babies and kids brains are clearly different to adult brains, which is what makes us think of them as something 'different'.


Alison Gopnik: One of the things I say is that babies are like the research and development division of the human species and we're production and marketing. They're the ones who are just exploring in a blue-sky way figuring out the way the world works, and we're the ones who actually take all those things that we learned as babies and put them to use as adults.

"Loving yourself is about as likely as tickling yourself"

---James Richardson, number 8 in his poem, "Vectors 2.3: Fifty Aphorism and Ten-Second Essays", originally published in America Poetry Review, collected in The Best American Poetry 2010, p. 124

A few others on the list that jumped out at me:

4. Spontaneity takes a few rehearsals.

10. No one's so entertaining as the one who thinks you are

13. Office supplies stores are the Cathedrals of Work in General. They forgive, they console, they promise a new start. These supplies have done work like yours a million times. Maybe when you get home it will already be finished.

14. When it gets ahead of itself, the wave breaks.

15. I'd listen to my conscience if I could be sure it was really mine.

17. The lesser of two evils is the one with the less evil friends.

26. What keeps us deceived is the hope that we aren't.

34. Do unto others and an eye for an eye have the same payment plan.

38. The great man's not sure he wants you to criticize even his great rival, let there be no such thing as greatness.

40. My best critic is me, too late.