I'm not senile," I snapped. "If I burn the house down it will be on purpose.
Interpretation
The speaker asserts mental clarity while expressing a drastic decision, highlighting intention and agency.
In this quote, the speaker, likely in a state of frustration, denies being out of touch or incapable of making rational decisions. Instead, they emphasize that any extreme action they take, such as burning down a house, would not be a result of confusion but a conscious choice, illustrating the importance of agency and clarity of thought even in intense situations.
In practice
During a heated discussion about personal choices and consequences.
If I am good enough and quiet enough, perhaps after all they will let me go; but it’s not easy being quiet and good, it’s like hanging on to the edge of a bridge when you’ve already fallen over; you don’t seem to be moving, just dangling there, and yet it is taking all your strength.
I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance. If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off.
What else can I do? Once you've gone this far you aren't fit for anything else. Something happens to your mind. You're overqualified, overspecialized, and everybody knows it. Nobody in any other game would be crazy enough to hire me. I wouldn't even make a good ditch-digger, I'd start tearing apart the sewer-system, trying to pick-axe and unearth all those chthonic symbols - pipes, valves, cloacal conduits... No, no. I'll have to be a slave in the paper-mines for all time.
We love each other, that’s true whatever it means, but we aren’t good at it; for some it’s a talent, for others only an addiction.
I've learned quite a lot, over the years, by avoiding what I was supposed to be learning.
Knowing too much about other people puts you in their power, they have a claim on you, you are forced to understand their reasons for doing things and then you are weakened.
I've overcome the blow, I've learned to take it well. I only wish my words could just convince myself that it just wasn't real. But that's not the way it feels.
In solitude we become aware that our worth is not the same as our usefulness.
If we are silent when we should speak, we are not living the Discipline of silence. If we speak when we should be silent, we again miss the mark.
If I'm an ass, I should say so. If I don't, somebody else will. If I say it first, that disarms them.
An active mind cannot exist in an inactive body.
Where the eye is focused, there the imagination finds its raw material. The right focus must be won at immense cost and discipline. Train the eye to see the good, and the imagination will follow suit.
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