Quotes About Intensity

I write because I hate. A lot. Hard.

I thought you looked like a man with a bridge on fire, she said.

The man wore a dark fedora and beneath its brim the fierce empty eyes looked out as if they were coming from a thousand miles away, and were off immediately another thousand in some other direction.

They looked at each other, baffled, in love and hate.

My favorite story about Danoff's intensity comes from Bill Miller, who recalls being introduced to him at an investment conference in Phoenix about thirty years ago: "I stuck out my hand and I said, 'Nice to meet you, Will.' And he didn't hold his hand out. He just looked at me and said, 'I'm gonna beat you, man. I'm gonna beat you.

He wanted to sink down and hug the coals to his chest. Flamboyant...coins of light...oil, wood, tatters...fumes from acids, soap, smoke...the sunlight shattered.

A flashlight held against the skin might just as well be off. Art, like light, needs distance, and anyone who attempts to render sexual experience directly must face the fact that the writhings which comprise it are ludicrous without their subjective content, that the intensity of that content quickly outruns its apparent cause, that the full experience becomes finally inarticulate, and that there is no major art that works close in. Not an enterprise for amateurs. Even the best are betrayed.

more terrifying now that he had been

Never so sure our rapture to create As when it touch'd the brink of all we hate.

I like your eyes when you get mad," I said. "They glow like embers.

We were too sick of the case to talk about it anymore but too obsessed with it to talk about anything else.

People hate as they love, unreasonably.

Lev Beniov:] "The imminence of death did not frighten me as much as it should have. I had been too afraid for too long; I was too exhausted, too hungry, too feel anything with proper intensity. But if my fear had diminished, it was not because my courage had increased. My body was so weak, so spent, that my legs trembled from the effort of standing upright. I could summon no great concern for anything, including the fate of Lev Beniov.

Speak in extremes, it'll save you time.

The students would burn out if forced to spend their entire day amidst the social intensity of the cafeteria and hallway. Fortunately the school authorities also schedule dormant periods, called classes, during which the students can rest their minds and take a break from the pressures of social categorization. Students correctly understand, though adults appear not to, that socialization is the most intellectually demanding and morally important thing they will do in high school.

Performers try harder.

John Coltrane, still playing at top intensity and volume, totally into it. He blew me out so bad I slid down the wall. The guy was still playing his solo. He hadn't stopped. I don't think he ever knew that I was in that room. He never saw that little ofay kid in the corner, you know, but he totally turned my mind to Jell-O at that point and that was my John Coltrane experience.

I was shocked. A dying word, "shocked." Few people have been able to use it well since Claude Rains so famously said, "I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on here," as he pocketed his winnings in Casablanca. But it's the only word for excitement and alarm of this intensity.

I am a war cry, bold and brash. I am kindling. I am ash, an evanescent glory.

The fifth secret may well be the most important: personal respect and affection. Visitors to Yale's Investments Office are invariably impressed by the open architecture and informal "happy ship" climate that is almost as obvious as the disciplined intensity with which the staff work at their tasks and responsibilities. Positive professionals perform at their peak productivity and teams get better with low turnover.

Let's set the place afire.

J'éprouvais alternativement la nécessité de ressentir l'intensité de la vie, et un sentiment profond de vacuité. Alors, tout me paraissait dérisoire et absurde.

Love affairs that start in blood tend to end up in blood.

Women can be kind of a blood sport.