As the clockwork of the millennia moved a notch in front of their eyes, it had taken their thoughts from small things and reminded them of how vulnerable they were to time.
Mark HelprinRead
To be mad is to feel with excruciating intensity the sadness and joy of a time which has not arrived or has already been.
Interpretation
Being mad means experiencing deep emotions about the past or future, rather than the present.
This quote by Mark Helprin reflects on the nature of madness as an overwhelming emotional state where one is not truly present in the moment, but rather consumed by feelings of joy and sadness related to times that have yet to come or have already passed. It suggests that this heightened emotional awareness, while potentially painful, is a profound aspect of the human experience, highlighting our struggles with time and memory.
In practice
During a speech about creativity and madness in art, this quote can illustrate how artists often feel profoundly connected to different times.
As the clockwork of the millennia moved a notch in front of their eyes, it had taken their thoughts from small things and reminded them of how vulnerable they were to time.
They're not just dreams. Not anymore, I dream more than I wake now, and, at times, I have crossed over. Can't you see? I've been there.
their powerlessness, innocence, and imagination fused to enable them to turn time inside out, travel on the wind, and enter the souls of animals.
Youβll join me sooner than you know in a place with . . . no illusions, where the truth is the only architecture, the only color, the only sound--where that which we sense merely on occasion, and which takes us up and gives us the rare and beautiful glimpses of the things we truly love, flows in deep rivers and tumbles about like clouds in the sky.
Perhaps things are most beautiful when they are not quite real; when you look upon a scene as an outsider, and come to possess it in its entirety and forever; when you live in the present with the lucidity and feeling of memory; when, for want of connection, the world deepens and becomes art.
The horse could not do without Manhattan. It drew him like a magnet, like a vacuum, like oats, or a mare, or an open, never-ending, tree-lined road.
If you look at other countries, you see they have different values: defend more, pass the ball out more, winning is holy. In England, you could say that sport itself is holy. They say, 'Look, guys, it's about more than just winning.'
My existence from day to day has become a matter of averting my eyes, of cringing. Death is the only truth left. Death is what I cannot bear to think. At every moment when I am thinking of something else, I am not thinking death, am not thinking the truth.
Perhaps he had to be close in order to keep a reason for the things he did. To make the things he did be themselves Life. And not merely a delightful exercise of technical skill which man had been able to achieve because he, of all the animals, had a fine thumb. Which is nonsense, for whatever you live is Life.
Even when you err, it is a thousand times better to err out of conviction than to hide your true opinion to respect some authority.
In what way can a man believing in God cease believing due to his personal vanity? There are only two ways. The man should either begin to think himself a rival of God, or he may begin to believe himself to be God.
It's the attitude about life, man. Looking at the light instead of the dark. Looking at love instead of fear.
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