Then Richard Parker, companion of my torment, awful, fierce thing that kept me alive, moved forward and disappeared forever from my life.
--
Chapter 94, p. 316Yann Martel
The silver trump of freedom had roused my soul to eternal wakefulness. Freedom now appeared, to disappear no more forever. It was heard in every sound, and seen in every thing. It was ever present to torment me with a sense of my wretched condition. I saw nothing without seeing it, I heard nothing without hearing it, and felt nothing without feeling it. It looked from every star, it smiled in every calm, breathed in every wind, and moved in every storm.
Frederick Douglass
I was weeping because Richard Parker left me so unceremoniously. What a terrible thing it is to botch the farewell. I am a person who believes in form, in the harmony of order. Where we can, we must give things meaningful shape.
Yann Martel
They say any artist paying six dollars may exhibit. Mr.Richard Mutt (= Duchamp, ed.) sent in a fountain. Without discussion this article disappeared and never was exhibited. What were the grounds for refusing Mr. Mutt’s fountain:
1. Some contented it was immoral, vulgar.
2. Others, it was plagiarism, a plain piece of plumbing.
Now, Mr. Mutt’s fountain is not immoral, that is absurd, no more than a bath tube is immoral. It is a fixture that you see every day in plumber’s show windows. Whether Mr. Mutt with his own hands made this fountain or not has no importance. He CHOSE it He took an ordinary article of life, placed it so that’s its useful significance disappeared under the new title (‘The Richard Mutt Case’ he made in 1917, ed.) and point of view, created a new thought for that object. As for plumbing, that is absurd. The only works of art America has given are her plumbing and her bridges.Marcel Duchamp
What I am really here to talk about is the central thing, the core, the nucleus—life itself. I’m not here to talk about what we should do in life. There are many options as far that is concerned and, of course, you can pick one, whatever suits you. But I’m talking about life itself without which nothing is wrong and nothing is right. Unbiased life. Maybe one day everything is going the right way for you and you’re incredibly happy. And you’re still breathing and you’re still alive. Then one day you’re really sad, and everything is terrible. And you’re still breathing; you’re still alive. That thing is never affected by what the outer circumstances are.
Maharaji (Prem Rawat)
It was Richard Parker who calmed me down. It is the irony of this story that the one who scared me witless to start with was the very same who brought me peace, purpose, I dare say even wholeness.
Yann Martel
Martel, Yann
Marti, Jose
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