The gods are fugitive guests of literature.
Interpretation
Literature holds a transient and vital connection to the divine, as if the gods briefly visit through storytelling.
Roberto Calassoβs quote suggests that the essence of gods, or the divine, is captured momentarily in literature. Just as guests experience a temporary stay, so too does the presence of divine inspiration flow through literary works, transforming human experiences into something greater than mere existence. This highlights the importance of literature as a sacred space for exploring themes of human nature and transcendence.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of storytelling in culture.
We establish a connection with the unknown through the act of giving something and, paradoxically, the act of destroying something. That is what is behind sacrifice. What you offer and what you destroy, it is that surplus which is life itself.
Myth is never a single story. It is always a tree with many branches.
Whatever else it might be, the divine is certainly the thing that imposes with maximum intensity the sensation of being alive.
Stories never live alone; They are the branches of a family that we have to trace back, and forward.
The monster does not need the hero. it is the hero who needs him for his very existence. When the hero confronts the monster, he has yet neither power nor knowledge, the monster is his secret father who will invest him with a power and knowledge that can belong to one man only, and that only the monster can give.
The artist need not know very much, best of all let him work instinctively and paint as naturally as he breathes or walks.
If somebody wants to sing my songs after I'm gone, nobody will be happier than my dead body.
If everybody became a poet the world would be much better. We would all read to each other.
I'm irresponsible to my career in order to paint. Because painting is obsessive. I forget to eat. I forget to sleep.
As for me, I am a watercolor. I wash off.
Black and white can show how something is. Color adds how it is, imbued with temperatures and humidities of experience.
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