Only, Not Alone

X.) Fictions alone cannot change the world, though they are forever infiltrating, if not liberating, the imaginations of those who do and might; and though artists are clearly indebted to popular art, in the end the mass media (and much else) remain far more influenced by great art.
— Richard Kostelanetz, from "Twenty-Five Fictional Hypotheses," in Surfiction, Raymond Federman (ed.), p. 284.

XIII.) The use of imposed constraints, as in traditional poetic forms, forces the creative imagination to resist the easy way, if not cliches as well, and encourages problem-solving and other processes of playfulness, in addition to challenging the reader to discern sense and significance in what at first seems inscrutable.
— Richard Kostelanetz, Ibid., p. 285.

     It is easy, of course, to be skeptical of a belief that is no longer fashionable; but it is not easy at all to be skeptical of one that is. This is why contemporary intellectuals find it so easy to scoff at religion and witchcraft and find it so difficult to scoff at medicine and mental illness. In the Middle Ages, the suggestion to regard heresy as just another way of life would have seemed absurd, or worse. Today the suggestion to regard mental illness as just another way of life seems equally absurd, or worse.
— Thomas Szasz, The Myth of Mental Illness, p. 198.

     The principal alternative to this dilemma lies, as I have suggested before, in abolishing the categories of ill and healthy behavior, and the prerequisites of mental sickness for so-called psychotherapy. This implies candid recognition that we "treat" people by psychoanalysis or psychotherapy not because they are sick but, first, because they desire this type of assistance; second, because they have problems in living for which they seek mastery through understanding of the kinds of games which they, and those around them, have been in the habit of playing; and third, because, as psychotherapists, we wanted and are able to participate in their "education," this being our professional role.
— Thomas Szasz, Ibid., p. 248.

     — Look here, Cranly — he said. — You have asked me what I would do and what I would not do. I will tell you what I will do and what I will not do. I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it call itself my home, my fatherland or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use, silence, exile and cunning. —
— James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, p. 291.

     — You made me confess the fears that I have. But I will tell you also what I do not fear. I do not fear to be alone or to be spurned for another or to leave whatever I have to leave. And I am not afraid to make a mistake, even a great mistake, a lifelong mistake and perhaps as long as eternity too. —
— James Joyce, Ibid., p. 292.

April 26. Mother is putting my new secondhand clothes in order. She prays now, she says, that I may learn in my own life and away from home and friends what the heart is and what it feels. Amen. So be it. Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.
April 27. Old father, old artificer stand me now and ever in good stead.
— James Joyce, Ibid., p. 299.