I feel as if I am an ad for the sale of a haunted house: 18 rooms $37,000 I’m yours ghosts and all.
Interpretation
The quote humorously describes feeling complex and flawed, yet still offering oneself to the world.
Richard Brautigan's quote presents a metaphorical view of the self as akin to a haunted house, implying that one's identity is filled with past experiences, troubles, and imperfections. The reference to '18 rooms' suggests various facets of personality, and the price indicates a willingness to share oneself, flaws included, with others, highlighting an acceptance of vulnerability and the complexity of human nature.
In practice
In a discussion about embracing one's flaws, you might quote this to illustrate the beauty in imperfection.
A sombrero fell out of the sky and landed on the main street of town in front of the mayor, his cousin, and a person out of work. The day was scrubbed clean by the desert air. The sky was blue. It was the blue of human eyes, waiting for something to happen. There was no reason for a sombrero to fall out of the sky. No airplane or helicopter was passing overhead and it was not a religious holiday.
In a Cafe" I watched a man in a cafe fold a slice of bread as if he were folding a birth certificate or looking at the photograph of a dead lover.
Finding is losing something else. I think about, perhaps even mourn, what I lost to find this
I like to think_x000D_ (it has to be!)_x000D_ of a cybernetic ecology_x000D_ where we are free of our labors_x000D_ and joined back to nature,_x000D_ returned to our mammal_x000D_ brothers and sisters,_x000D_ and all watched over_x000D_ by machines of loving grace.
Gee, You're so Beautiful That It's Starting to Rain Oh, Marcia, I want your long blonde beauty to be taught in high school, so kids will learn that God lives like music in the skin and sounds like a sunshine harpsicord. I want high school report cards to look like this: Playing with Gentle Glass Things A Computer Magic A Writing Letters to Those You Love A Finding out about Fish A Marcia's Long Blonde Beauty A+!
You can never go home again, but the truth is you can never leave home, so it's all right.
New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.
And therefore in geometry (which is the only science that it hath pleased God hitherto to bestow on mankind), men begin at settling the significations of their words; which settling of significations, they call definitions, and place them in the beginning of their reckoning.
Life must have its sacred moments and its holy places. We need the infinite, the limitless, the uttermost -- all that can give the heart a deep and strengthening peace.
I remember a time when a cabbage could sell itself by being a cabbage. Nowadays it’s no good being a cabbage – unless you have an agent and pay him a commission. Nothing is free anymore to sell itself or give itself away. These days, Countess, every cabbage has its pimp.
The worst thing about movie-making is that it's like life: nobody can go back to correct the mistakes.
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