Robbins

"Here they teach that much of existence amounts only to misery; that misery is caused by desire; thereofore, if desire is eliminated, then misery will be eliminated. Now, that is true enough, as far as it goes. There is plenty of misery in the world, all right, but there is ample pleasure, as well. If a person foreswears pleasure in order to avoid misery, what has he gained? A life with neither misery nor pleasure is an empty, neutral existence, and, indeed, it is the nothingness of the void that is the lamas' final objective. To actively seek nothingness is worse than defeat; why, Kudra, it is surrender; craven, chickenhearted, dishonorable surrender. Poor little babies are so afraid of pain that they spurn the myriad sweet wonders of life so that they might protect themselves from hurt. How can you respect that sort of weakness, how can you admire a human who consciously embraces the bland, the mediocre, and the safe rather than risk the suffering that disappointments can bring?"


August 29, 1999

Robbins

"The gods have a great sense of humor, don't they? If you lack the iron and the fizz to take control of your own life, if you insist on leaving your fate to the gods, then the gods will repay your weakness by having a grin or two at your expense. Should you fail to pilot your own ship, don't be surprised at what inapporpriate port you find yourself docked. The dull and prosaic will be granted adventures that will dice their central nervous system like an onion, romantic dreamery will end up in the rope yard. You may protest that it is too much to ask of an unedcuated fifteen-year-old girl that she defy her family, her society, her culture and religion, heritage in order to pursue a dream that she doesn't really understand. Of course it is asking too much. The price of self-destiny is never cheap, and in certain situations it is unthinkable. But to achieve the marvelous, it is precisely the unthinkable that must be thought."


August 29, 1999

Morris

"Yet there is an electricity between white Southerners and Eastern Jews, for despite the most manifest disparities they have emerged from two similar cultures, buttressed by old traditions of anguish and the promise of justice. They sense this in each other; in the happiest of circumstances they exist to one another somewhat like parallel lines. They bemuse one another. For if the Jews are the carriers of culture, taking it with them wherever they go, from Warsaw to Scarsdale, the Southerners themselves are the oldest of the Americans, adventurers, dreamers of dreams, high-tempered and stubborn, playful even in the direst times, the classic founders of states and indeed of our nation."


August 17, 1999

Morris

"And I've learned that most Southerners go home sooner or later for good, even if it's in a coffin."


August 17, 1999