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.
The happiest excitement in life is to be convinced that one is fighting for all one is worth on behalf of some clearly seen and deeply felt good, and against some greatly scorned evil.
Cause my life is dope, and I do dope sh*t
In order to really enjoy a dog, one doesn't merely try to train him to be semi-human. The point of it is to open oneself to the possibility of becoming partly a dog.
But sometimes, unexpectedly, grief pounded over me in waves that left me gasping; and when the waves washed back, I found myself looking out over a brackish wreck which was illumined in a light so lucid, so heartsick and empty, that I could hardly remember that the world had ever been anything but dead.
I leave shreds of my soul on every experience.
Children are caterpillars and adults are butterflies. No butterfly ever remembers what it felt like being a caterpillar.
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