I am only at home in the present.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of living in the moment and experiencing life as it happens.
Gore Vidal's quote, 'I am only at home in the present,' reflects the idea that true comfort and fulfillment can only be found by being fully engaged in the current moment. This perspective encourages individuals to let go of past regrets and future anxieties, highlighting the significance of embracing the here and now as the only reality we can truly inhabit.
In practice
In a motivational speech about mindfulness during a wellness seminar.
We must declare ourselves, become known; allow the world to discover this subterranean life of ours which connects kings and farm boys, artists and clerks. Let them see that the important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself.
American writers want to be not good but great; and so are neither.
Writing fiction has become a priestly business in countries that have lost their faith.
The important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself.
For the average American, freedom of speech is simply the freedom to repeat what everyone else is saying and no more.
Ayn Rand's 'philosophy' is nearly perfect in its immorality, which makes the size of her audience all the more ominous and symptomatic as we enter a curious new phase in our society.... To justify and extol human greed and egotism is to my mind not only immoral, but evil.
Everyone believes very easily whatever they fear or desire.
It is while you are patiently toiling at the little tasks of life that the meaning and shape of the great whole of life dawn on you.
No member of a society has a right to teach any doctrine contrary to what the society holds to be true.
To put it crudely but graphically, the monkey who did not have a realistic perception of the tree branch he jumped for was soon a dead monkey-and therefore did not become one of our ancestors.
I am simultaneously and contradictorily both happy and unhappy: 'to succeed' or 'to fail' have for me only ephemeral, contingent meanings (this does not stop my desires and sorrows from being violent ones); what impels me, secretly and obstinately, is not tactical: I accept and I affirm, irrespective of the true and the false, of success and failure; I am withdrawn from all finality, I live according to chance.
Just having the internet is a weird and dangerous thing because people become accustomed to knowing things when they want to know them and not having to work for it. I definitely see the value in not knowing everything and having mystery in life and mystery in people.
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