Socrates told us, "the unexamined life is not worth living." I think he's calling for curiosity, more than knowledge. In every human society at all times and at all levels, the curious are at the leading edge.
Roger EbertRead
What happens in a fantasy can be more involving than what happens in life, and thank goodness for that.
Interpretation
Fantasy often captures our imagination more powerfully than reality, and this can be a positive aspect of storytelling.
Roger Ebert's quote emphasizes the importance and depth of fantasy as a form of art and storytelling. He suggests that the experiences we engage with in fantasy can be richer and more emotionally compelling than those in our actual lives, providing us with an escape and a source of inspiration. This highlights the value of creative expression and its ability to resonate with our feelings and thoughts in ways that reality sometimes cannot.
In practice
In a discussion about the significance of movies at a film festival.
Socrates told us, "the unexamined life is not worth living." I think he's calling for curiosity, more than knowledge. In every human society at all times and at all levels, the curious are at the leading edge.
Vincent Gallo has put a curse on my colon and a hex on my prostate. He called me a 'fat pig' in the New York Post and told the New York Observer I have 'the physique of a slave-trader.' He is angry at me because I said his 'The Brown Bunny' was the worst movie in the history of the Cannes Film Festival... _x000D_ it is true that I am fat, but one day I will be thin, and he will still be the director of 'The Brown Bunny.'
I was born inside the movie of my life. The visuals were before me, the audio surrounded me, the plot unfolded inevitably but not necessarily. I don't remember how I got into the movie, but it continues to entertain me.
Why do alcoholics begin down the same hazardous road day after day? They are in search of that elusive window of well-being that opens when you drink your way out of a hangover and aren't yet drunk all over again. The alcoholic's day consists of trying to keep that window open.
There are no guarantees. But there is also nothing to fear. We come from oblivion when we are born. We return to oblivion when we die. The astonishing thing is this period of in-between.
Parents and schools should place great emphasis on the idea that it is all right to be different. Racism and all the other 'isms' grow from primitive tribalism, the instinctive hostility against those of another tribe, race, religion, nationality, class or whatever. You are a lucky child if your parents taught you to accept diversity.
Poetry is a political act because it involves telling the truth.
And If the surgeon is like a poet, then the scars you have made on countless bodies are like verses into the fashioning of which you have poured your soul.
If there is some good in me, it is because I was born in the subtle atmosphere of your country of Arezzo. Along with the milk of my nurse I received the knack of handling chisel and hammer, with which I make my figures.
We may feel bitterly how little our poems can do in the face of seemingly out-of-control technological power and seemingly limitless corporate greed, yet it has always been true that poetry can break isolation, show us to ourselves when we are outlawed or made invisible, remind us of beauty where no beauty seems possible, remind us of kinship where all is represented as separation.
I never step upon a stage without asking myself whether I will succeed in finishing the opera. The fact is that a conscientious singer is never sure of himself or of anything. He is ever in the hands of Destiny.
For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.