#objects

Stories, as much as we like to talk about them, retrospectively, as emanations of theme or worldview or intention, occur primarily as technical objects when they're being written. Or at least they do for me. They're the result of thousands of decisions made at speed during revision. ↗

— George Saunders

#being #decisions #during #intention #least

Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art. ↗

— Tom Stoppard

#baskets #craftsmanship #gives #imagination #many

Sometimes, when you get something new, you trick yourself into believing it has the power to change absolutely everything about you. ↗

— Siobhan Vivian

#change

Did you find anything special?' Blackie asked. T. nodded. 'Come over here,' he said, 'and look.' Out of both pockets he drew bundles of pound notes. 'Old Misery's savings,' he said. 'Mike ripped out the mattress, but he missed them.' 'What are you going to do? Share them?' 'We aren't thieves,' T. said. 'Nobody's going to steal anything from this house. I kept these for you and me - a celebration.' He knelt down on the floor and counted them out - there were seventy in all. 'We'll burn them,' he said, 'one by one,' and taking it in turns they held a note upwards and lit the top corner, so that the flame burnt slowly towards their fingers. The grey ash floated above them and fell on their heads like age. 'I'd like to see Old Misery's face when we are through,' T. said. 'You hate him a lot?' Blackie asked. 'Of course I don't hate him,' T. said. 'There'd be no fun if I hated him.' The last burning note illuminated his brooding face. 'All this hate and love,' he said, 'it's soft, it's hooey. There's only things, Blackie,' and he looked round the room crowded with the unfamiliar shadows of half things, broken things, former things. 'I'll race you home, Blackie,' he said. ("The Destructors") ↗

— Graham Greene

#love #materialism #money #objects #things

All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it. ↗

— Jean Cocteau

#feelings #good #good music #motivated #mysterious

We were totally unprepared for such a large quantity of visitors, and in view of the preservation of the antiquities they being very crowded and in poor preservation, we were obliged to refuse admission until some preparation was made to safeguard the objects. ↗

— Howard Carter

#being #crowded #large #made #objects

Although the dream is a very strange phenomenon and an inexplicable mystery, far more inexplicable is the mystery and aspect our minds confer on certain objects and aspects of life. ↗

— Giorgio de Chirico

#aspect #aspects #certain #confer #dream

Works of art, in my opinion, are the only objects in the material universe to possess internal order, and that is why, though I don't believe that only art matters, I do believe in Art for Art's sake. ↗

— E. M. Forster

#believe #i #i do #in my opinion #internal

How it came to pass that man, originally taught, as we doubt not he was, to know and to worship the true Jehovah, is found, at so early a period of his history, a worshiper of baser objects, it is foreign to our present purpose to inquire. ↗

— Simon Greenleaf

#doubt #early #foreign #found #his

Peace and abstinence from European interferences are our objects, and so will continue while the present order of things in America remain uninterrupted. ↗

— Thomas Jefferson

#america #continue #european #interferences #objects