Thursday, August 10, 2006

Quote for Today

"I don't know much about other countries. And I thought for a while that Americans might actually increase their wisdom through experiments with their body chemistry, or with meditation techniques borrowed from Asia. I now have to say that all such voyagers have returned to American banality without any artifacts, and with adventure stories stimulating only to themselves.

So I now believe that the only way in which Americans can rise above their ordinariness, can mature sufficiently to rescue themselves and to help rescue their planet, is through enthusiastic intimacy with works of their own imagination."
-Kurt Vonnegut

2 comments:

Sine.Qua.Non said...

You can't help but love Vonnegut. It is a mind that was not wasted, not ordinary in the least and one you wish you could explore at your leisure, like a holiday. Sort of like "Being John Malkovich," but more as a sharing of how his mind works and his experiences.

What he says here is right on target as well. Americans are particularly ordinary, pedestrian, colonial and...... we really need to grow up.

Rufus said...

What fascinates me about the comment is the idea of indulging in the products of our own imagination. William S. Burroughs once said that surrealism was missing from American literature, but it's perhaps the prime indicator of a healthy culture.