In deep sadness there is no place for sentimentality. It is as final as the mountains: a fact. There it is. When you realize it you cannot complain.
Interpretation
Sadness is a harsh reality that demands acceptance without sentimentality.
The quote by William S. Burroughs suggests that deep sadness is an unambiguous and definitive experience, much like the unyielding nature of mountains. It emphasizes the inevitability of such feelings, urging acceptance rather than complaint or romanticizing the pain, pointing to the stark reality one must confront in moments of deep sorrow.
In practice
During a workshop on emotional resilience, one might quote Burroughs to highlight the acceptance of grief.
God save the Queen and a fascist regime β¦ a flabby toothless fascism, to be sure. Never go too far in any direction, is the basic law on which Limey-Land is built. The Queen stabilizes the whole sinking shithouse and keeps a small elite of wealth and privilege on top. The English have gone soft in the outhouse. England is like some stricken beast too stupid to know it is dead. Ingloriously foundering in its own waste products, the backlash and bad karma of empire
Like most qualities, cuteness is delineated by what it isn't. Most people aren't cute at all, or if so they quickly outgrow their cuteness ... Elegance, grace, delicacy, beauty, and a lack of self-consciousness: a creature who knows he is cute soon isn't.
There is nothing more provocative than minding your own business.
Gentle reader, the Fountain of Youth is radioactive, and those who imbibe its poisonous heavy waters will suffer the hideous fate of decaying metal. Yet almost without exception, the wretched idiot inhabitants of our benighted planet would gulp down this radioactive excrement if it were offered.
Language is a virus from outer space.
One very important aspect of art is that it makes people aware of what they know and donβt know they know... Once the breakthrough is made, there is a permanent expansion of awareness. But there is always a reaction of rage, of outrage, at the first breakthrough... So the artist, then, expands awareness. And once the breakthrough is made, this becomes part of the general awareness.
The self cannot be self without other selves.
We should live totally in the face of the night and of the Evil.
I think when the people in Burma stop thinking about whether or not they're free, it'll mean that they're free.
If there is no contradictory impression, there is nothing to awaken reflection
What a powerful thing to know: That one's own desires are mappable onto strangers; that what one finds in oneself will most certainly be found in The Other.
We live in a world that has narrowed into a neighborhood before it has broadened into a brotherhood.
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