I feel as if I am an ad for the sale of a haunted house: 18 rooms $37,000 I’m yours ghosts and all.
Interpretation
The quote humorously describes feeling complex and flawed, yet still offering oneself to the world.
Richard Brautigan's quote presents a metaphorical view of the self as akin to a haunted house, implying that one's identity is filled with past experiences, troubles, and imperfections. The reference to '18 rooms' suggests various facets of personality, and the price indicates a willingness to share oneself, flaws included, with others, highlighting an acceptance of vulnerability and the complexity of human nature.
In practice
In a discussion about embracing one's flaws, you might quote this to illustrate the beauty in imperfection.
A sombrero fell out of the sky and landed on the main street of town in front of the mayor, his cousin, and a person out of work. The day was scrubbed clean by the desert air. The sky was blue. It was the blue of human eyes, waiting for something to happen. There was no reason for a sombrero to fall out of the sky. No airplane or helicopter was passing overhead and it was not a religious holiday.
In a Cafe" I watched a man in a cafe fold a slice of bread as if he were folding a birth certificate or looking at the photograph of a dead lover.
Finding is losing something else. I think about, perhaps even mourn, what I lost to find this
I like to think_x000D_ (it has to be!)_x000D_ of a cybernetic ecology_x000D_ where we are free of our labors_x000D_ and joined back to nature,_x000D_ returned to our mammal_x000D_ brothers and sisters,_x000D_ and all watched over_x000D_ by machines of loving grace.
Gee, You're so Beautiful That It's Starting to Rain Oh, Marcia, I want your long blonde beauty to be taught in high school, so kids will learn that God lives like music in the skin and sounds like a sunshine harpsicord. I want high school report cards to look like this: Playing with Gentle Glass Things A Computer Magic A Writing Letters to Those You Love A Finding out about Fish A Marcia's Long Blonde Beauty A+!
Death threatens our speech with futility because death is not just a biological event - it is a reality we fear may rob our living of any significance.
People may assume 'The Act of Killing' is a historical documentary about what happened in 1965. But our purpose was to expose a present-day regime of fear for what it is.
Each one of us sees Jesus in a different way. To some, He was prophet, for they needed to know the kingdom was at hand. But most of all, He was the son of God, and He came to experience the consequences of the curse the Father had put upon mankind when Adam and Eve disobeyed.
[T]he truth is that fullness of soul can sometimes overflow in utter vapidity of language, for none of us can ever express the exact measure of his needs or his thoughts or his sorrows; and human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.
There are arguments for atheism, and they do not depend, and never did depend, upon science. They are arguable enough, as far as they go, upon a general survey of life; only it happens to be a superficial survey of life.
It is only the superficial qualities that last. Man's deeper nature is soon found out.
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