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"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes 'Awww!'"

-Kerouac

Friday
Apr202007

« Words Don't Fail Us »

DateFriday, April 20, 2007 at 12:26 | CommentPost a Comment | | in , | |

"Our use of words in which meaning is conveyed by one sound after another, never in a simultaneous present, is for Plotinus, as for Augustine, a symptom of the fallen condition of humanity (5.3.17.24). Nevertheless, 'all things are full of signs' (Plotinus 2.3.7.12). Augustine's fascination with words and his awareness of the difficulty human beings have in communicating their meaning to one another, even when there is no linguistic barrier to cross, made him acutely conscious of a semantic problem. He affirmed the fact that we have to use our words as signs to be a consequence of our fallen estate. All words are inadequate for the expression of divine mysteries."
- Henry Chadwick in his Introduction to Saint Augustine's Confessions

I guess these guys never heard of poetry or rewriting many drafts over a long period of time.

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