The Mind Itself Is An

The Sensation Of Writing A Book Is The Sensation Of Spinning, Blinded By Love And Daring.

It Is Madness To Wear Ladies' Straw Hats And Velvet Hats To Church; We Should All Be Wearing Crash Helmets. Ushers Should Issue Life Preservers And Signal Flares; They Should Lash Us To Our Pews. For The Sleeping God May Wake Someday And Take Offense, Or The Waking God May Draw Us Out To Where We Can Never Return.

As A Thinker I Keep Discovering That Beauty Itself Is As Much A Fact, And A Mystery...i Consider Nature's Facts -- Its Beautiful And Grotesque Forms And Events -- In Terms Of The Import To Thought And Their Impetus To The Spirit. In Nature I Find Grace Tangled In A Rapture With Violence; I Find An Intricate Landscape Whose Forms Are Fringed In Death; I Find Mystery, Newness, And A Kind Of Exuberant, Spendthrift Energy.

The Universe That Suckled Us Is A Monster That Does Not Care If We Live Or Die--it Does Not Care If It Itself Grinds To A Halt. It Is A Beast Running On Chance And Death, Careening From Nowhere To Nowhere. It Is Fixed And Blind, A Robot Programmed To Kill. We Are Free And Seeing; We Can Only Try To Outwit It At Every Turn To Save Our Lives.

Beauty And Grace Are Performed Whether Or Not We Sense Them.