The paradox of genius exposes us directly to the dynamic of open reciprocity, for if you are the genius of what you say to me, I am the genius of what I hear you say.

The privilege of magisterial speech is the highest honor attaching to any title.

“To believe is to know you believe, and to know you believe is not to believe” (Sartre).

And just as with slaves, the life they receive is given to them by others: doctors, yogis, or their anonymous admirers.

True poets lead no one unawares. It is nothing other than awareness that poets—that is, creators of all sorts—seek. They do not display their art so as to make it appear real; they display the real in a way that reveals it to be art.

Power is always measured in units of comparison.

MYTH PROVOKES Explanation but accepts none of it. Where explanation absorbs the unspeakable into the speakable, myth reintroduces the silence that makes original discourse possible. Explanations establish islands, even continents, of order and predictability. But these regions were first charted by adventurers whose lives are narratives of explorat

Infinite play is inherently paradoxical, just as finite play is inherently contradictory.

Its limits are meaningless unless there is something to be limited, unless there is a larger space, a longer time, a greater number of possible competitors.