A manifesto, a diary, a crumpled suicide note, and a still relevant love letter.
--
On his work Breakdowns : A Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@?*! (1978; 2008) as quoted in "Art Spiegelman on ‘Breakdowns’ Redux and the Dark Side of Tina Fey" by Rebecca Milzoff in New York magazine (8 October 2008)Art Spiegelman
» Art Spiegelman - all quotes »
I have an essay with the title "Eyes in their Last Extremity".
The title comes from the suicide note of the short-story writer Akutagawa Ryunosuke... It is the phrase that pulls at me with the greatest strength. Akutagawa said that he seemed to be gradually losing the animal something known as the strength to live, and continued:
"I am living in a world of morbid nerves, clear and cold as ice... I do not know when I will summon up the resolve to kill myself. But nature is for me more beautiful than it has ever been before. I have no doubt that you will laugh at the contradiction, for here I love nature even when I am contemplating suicide. But nature is beautiful because it comes to my eyes in their last extremity."
Akutagawa committed suicide in 1927, at the age of thirty-five.
In my essay, "Eyes in their Last Extremity", I had to say: "How ever alienated one may be from the world, suicide is not a form of enlightenment. However admirable he may be, the man who commits suicide is far from the realm of the saint." I neither admire nor am in sympathy with suicide.Yasunari Kawabata
Inevitably, we’ve fastened on those last memorable lines about hope, optimism and love. But the letter was, at its heart, a manifesto for social democracy. And if there was one word that might sum up Jack Layton’s unabashed, social democratic message, it would be “generosity.” He wanted, in the simplest and most visceral terms, a more generous Canada.
Jack Layton
But despite the clarion words of the Manifesto, the demonic note was not a call for a revolution of communism; it was a cry born only of frustration and despair.
Robert Heilbroner
I've been keeping a diary since I was about 11. If you don't keep a diary everything washes away. And you can live everything three times: you live it when you live it, you live it when you write it down, and you live it a third time when you re-read it. Though I have to say rereading my diary for publication was a depressing experience. You shouldn't look back.
Gyles Brandreth
I have a paper cut from writing my suicide note. It's a start...
Steven Wright
Spiegelman, Art
Spielberg, Steven
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z