maybe

"Maybe even God only exists from time to time," the chief inspector added quietly.  
"Maybe," Gregory replied indifferently. "But the gaps in his indifference are very wide, you know."
He stood up, walked over to the wall, and stared at a photograph without seeing it.
"Maybe even we ..." he began hesitantly, "even we exist from time to time; I mean: sometimes less, sometimes almost disappearing, dissolving, and then, with sudden spasm, a sudden spurt that disintegrates the memory center, we merge for a moment ... for a day ... and we become—"
He stopped abruptly. After a moment he spoke again in a different tone of voice.
"Forgive me for going on like that. It's all nonsense. Maybe ... It's time for me to go."

—Stanislav Lem, The Investigation

Liberty Street, August 10

Okay, an offering—but to what god?

RIP

Words overheard from behind a tall hedge while walking the dog this morning:

"You're swan-like. Swan-like, not Swan Lake."

RIP Gore Vidal

"What matters finally is not the world’s judgment of oneself but one’s own judgment of the world. Any writer who lacks this final arrogance will not survive very long, especially in America."

—G.V. on Norman Mailer in The Nation, 1960

Update on Friday, August 3, 2012 at 09:50PM by b.

And also: "And those who take solemnly the words of other men as absolute are, in the deepest sense, maiming their own sensibility and controverting the evidence of their own senses in a fashion which may be comforting to a terrified man but is disastrous for an artist."