#magi

Once you familiarize yourself with your tools, you should forget about them. It will only throw you off-balance. In all these ‘rolling shit into little balls’ types who spend hours of time and reams of paper saying nothing, literary masturbators, they concentrate on the vehicle more than what they want to produce. That impedes the end result and defeats the purpose. You must lose consciousness of the medium or mechanics to do the impossible. Like Nijinsky who explained how he gave the impression of hovering in mid-air – ‘I just pause when I get there.’ In a child-like way, real magicians innocently do the simplest thing. The objective is all they think about. I just want to make music the way I hear it. The ends justify the means, and the means become inconsequential. ↗

— Anton Szandor LaVey

#satanism #success #working #writing #music

I believe in the power of the imagination to remake the world, to release the truth within us, to hold back the night, to transcend death, to charm motorways, to ingratiate ourselves with birds, to enlist the confidences of madmen. ↗

— J.G. Ballard

#immortality #death

Nowhere is the sense of medium felt more strongly, even by the casual reader, than in a story about to end. For the novelist the problem is no longer how to tell his tale, but how to close it down; how to switch imaginative energies which have been used in sustaining the tale, into energies which will not just stop it, but will resolve it. The process of telling must be made to predicate its own conclusion. For the reader, in sight of an ending, the mode of attention shifts, the rhythm alters, and a pressure of significance begins to build up behind the closing chapters. The pace of the narrative begins to slow, the 'ever after' looms, past and present emerge in ever sharper juxtaposition. It is this heightened attention to the medium that characterises the ending and we are not surprised to find that for some novelists 'endings' seem to play false to the narrative which leads to them. 'Conclusions are the weak points of most authors', George Eliot wrote, 'but some of the fault must lie in the very nature of a conclusion which is at best a negation'. ↗

— Ian Gregor

#imagination

Are you always so mistrusting?” he said, lifting a brow. “When my escort is a demon, yes. ↗

— Lia Davis

#demon #magic #paranormal-romance #the-divinities-series #witch

In the war of magic and religion, is magic ultimately the victor? Perhaps priest and magician were once one, but the priest, learning humility in the face of God, discarded the spell for prayer. ↗

— Patti Smith

#magic #magician #priest #religion #religion

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. ↗

— Arthur C. Clarke

#advanced #advanced technology #any #indistinguishable #magic

Magic--that's just a label, you know. Completely meaningless. It wasn't so very long ago that people were saying that electricity was magic. ↗

— Robert Bloch

#technology #technology

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now. ↗

— William Hutchison Murray

#committed #creatiion #initiative #magic #power

Having a Vision is not enough. It must be combined with imagination, determination, faith, hope and passion. It is not enough to just stare up at the stars...we must become the stars that the stars shine down on. ↗

— Victoria June

#dreams #faith #hope #imagination #passion

I don't believe in the kind of magic in my books. But I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book. ↗

— J.K. Rowling

#magic #magic-books #read