The True Alchemists Do Not

Sports, Politics, And Religion Are The Three Passions Of The Badly Educated.

I Was Struck By The Way In Which Meanings Are Historically Attached To Words: It Is So Accidental, So Remote, So Twisted. A Word Is Like A Schoolgirl's Room--a Complete Mess--so The Great Thing Is To Make Out A Way Of Seeing It All As Ordered, As Right, As Inferred And Following.

I Should Like To Suggest That At Least On The Face Of It A Stroke By Stroke Story Of A Copulation Is Exactly As Absurd As A Chew By Chew Account Of The Consumption Of A Chicken's Wing.

We Must Take Our Sentences Seriously, Which Means We Must Understand Them Philosophically, And The Odd Thing Is That The Few Who Do, Who Take Them With Utter Sober Seriousness, The Utter Sober Seriousness Of Right-wing Parsons And Political Saviors, The Owners Of Pomeranians, Are The Liars Who Want To Be Believed, The Novelists And Poets, Who Know That The Creatures They Imagine Have No Other Being Than The Sounding Syllables Which The Reader Will Speak Into His Own Weary And Distracted Head. There Are No Magic Words. To Say The Words Is Magical Enough.

Words [are] More Beautiful Than A Found Fall Leaf.