Tuesday, January 05, 2010

"Any experience deeply felt makes some men better and some men worse"

--- journalist Murray Kempton (1917 - 1998), Part of Our Time: Some Ruins and Monuments of the Thirties, Modern Library Ed edition (November 24, 1998) ), A Prelude, p. 7

"Any experience deeply felt makes some men better and some men worse. When it has ended, they share nothing but the recollection of a commitment in which each was tested and each to some degree found wanting. They were not alike when they began, and they were not alike when they finished. T. S. Eliot says in one of his Quartets that time is no healer, because the patient is no longer here. The consequences of the journey change the voyager so much more than the embarking or the arrival."

Peter Pringle's obituary in the The Independent has another nice quote: "There's no excuse for kicking somebody unless he's up"