And, as I have said, it’s made me think twice about the imagination. If the spirits aren’t external, how astonishing the mediums become! Victor Hugo said of his voices that they were like his own mental powers multiplied by five.
Were
My children were the center of my life.
Many of the Iroquois and Huron houses were of similar construction, the partitions being at the sides only, leaving a wide passage down the middle of the house.
In 1900, as the immigrants come down the gangplank into Jersey City, they expect the streets to be paved with gold, and they were only paved with gold in Frank Baum’s ‘The Wizard of Oz,’ of course.
Although the most acute judges of the witches and even the witches themselves, were convinced of the guilt of witchery, the guilt nevertheless was non-existent. It is thus with all guilt.
I loathe the trivialization of poetry that happens in creative writing classes. Teachers set exercises to stimulate subject matter: Write a poem about an imaginary landscape with real people in it. Write about a place your parents lived in before you were born. We have enough terrible poetry around without encouraging more of it.
Of what use were the arts if they were only the reproduction and the imitation of life?
Some of you may know my story: How for nineteen years, I worked as a manager for a tire plant in Alabama. And some of you may have lived a similar story: After nearly two decades of hard, proud work, I found out that I was making significantly less money than the men who were doing the same work as me.
Whatever my aims and agendas were, I never asked for power.
I have more memories than if I were a thousand years old.