Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.
Interpretation
Life can often be dull, but it's important to find joy and avoid expressing negativity.
John Berryman suggests that while life may feel uneventful or mundane, especially in the company of friends, openly admitting to such feelings can dampen the spirit of companionship. Instead, the quote encourages us to focus on the positive aspects and seek out meaning and enjoyment in our experiences, even when they seem ordinary.
In practice
During a speech about embracing life's challenges, one could use this quote to illustrate the importance of a positive outlook.
There is no such thing as Freedom (though it is the most important condition of human life, after Humility, -which does not exist either). There is only Slavery (walls around one) and absence-of-Slavery (ability to walk in any direction, or to remain still).
We must travel in the direction of our fear.
The artist is extremely lucky who is presented with the worst possible ordeal which will not actually kill him. At that point, he's in business.
One must be ruthless with one's own writing or someone else will be.
Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so. After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns, we ourselves flash and yearn, and moreover my mother told me as a boy (repeatedly) 'Ever to confess you're bored means you have no inner Resources.' I conclude now I have no inner resources, because I am heavy bored.
I do strongly feel that among the greatest pieces of luck for high achievement is ordeal. Certain great artists can make out without it, Titian and others, but mostly you need ordeal. My idea is this: the artist is extremely lucky who is presented with the worst possible ordeal which will not actually kill him. At that point, he's in business: Beethoven's deafness, Goya's deafness, Milton's blindness, that kind of thing.
There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossibility. Inside of the dullest exterior there is a drama, a comedy, and a tragedy.
Children are caterpillars and adults are butterflies. No butterfly ever remembers what it felt like being a caterpillar.
Life's not breaths you take, but the moments that take your breath away.
Then the children went to bed, or at least went upstairs, and the men joined the women for a cigarette on the porch, absently picking ticks engorged like grapes off the sleeping dogs. And when the men kissed the women good night, and their weekend whiskers scratched the women's cheeks, the women did not think shave, they thought stay.
Better to try all things and find all empty, than to try nothing and leave your life a blank.
There were many moments in the Vine like that one--where you might think today was yesterday, and yesterday was tomorrow, and so on. Because we all believed we were tragic, and we drank. We had that helpless, destined feeling. We would die with handcuffs on. We would be put a stop to, and it wouldn't be our fault. So we imagined. And yet we were always being found innocent for ridiculous reasons.
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