"For myself, I genuinely think that one of the real responsibilities of an artist and writer (or, more properly, what I look for in writing and art myself) is a clear, honest communication of what it feels like to be alive to people who haven't been born yet.� There's a unique emotional rudder that literature and art can provide to a consciousness drifting through life -- not something as banal as a roadmap or a rule book - but a sort of sympathetic rut in the road.� And whether that rut is real or imaginary, life ia a lot harder to get through without it."� (p. xviii)
“…[I]f any art is to endure, the effort expended on its creation is usurped (and one hopes eventually dwarfed) by the work’s lasting power.� For example, it takes a few days to read War and Peace, which took Tolstoy a few years to write, but it has survived and grown exponentially in strength through many generations of readers.� Being so faced with eternity, at some point the artist, writer, or cartoonist has to somehow allow his or her work, for lack of any better metaphor, to take on a life of its own – a necessary step tat admits instinct, uncertainty, or faith into the act of creation – what is frequently referred to as ‘taking a risk’ in art.� Sometimes this yielding can lead to complete failure, other times it can lead to something much larger.”(p. xix)
This resonated with me.�� I love that shiver of pleasure and sense of peace when I discover a moment of human experience – even when it is not my own experience – perfectly captured in art.� Perhaps it is the sense of being in a conversation with another mind, outside the prison-house of my own soul.� Or perhaps it is the comfort of knowing that some slice of time, some sliver of the beauty in the world, has been pinned to a�page, and� – however imperfectly and still impermanently – transcended death.�
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