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It is not usually possible in a poem or a story to make the relationship between particular and universal fully explicit. Those who try to do so end up writing parables.

John Berger

She is meant to imagine herself transformed by the product into an object of envy for others, an envy which will then justify her loving herself.
JOHN BERGER

Envy Herself Imagine Justify Loving Menat Object Other Product Transform
That we find a crystal or a poppy beautiful means that we are less alone, that we are more deeply inserted into existence than the course of a single life would lead us to believe.
JOHN BERGER

Alone Beautiful Believe Crystal Deeply Existence Less More Nature Ours Poppy
All photographs are there to remind us of what we forget. In this – as in other ways – they are the opposite of paintings.
JOHN BERGER

Forget Opposite Other Pain Painting Photography Remind Way
Your lips, beloved, are like a honeycomb: honey and milk are under the tongue. And the smell of your clothes is like the smell of my home.
JOHN BERGER

Beloved Clothes Home Honeycomb Like Lip Milk Smell Tongue
Compassion opposes this order and is therefore best thought of as being in some way supernatural.
JOHN BERGER

Basic Best Compassion Necessity Oppose Order Therefore World
If every event which occurred could be given a name, there would be no need for stories.
JOHN BERGER

Event Given Name Need Occurred Story
Nothing fortuitous happens in a child’s world. There are no accidents. Everything is connected with everything else and everything can be explained by everything else. . . . For a young child everything that happens is a necessity.
JOHN BERGER

Child Children Fortuitouus Happen Nothing World Young
The stars threaded on that line were like events threaded on a narrative. Imagining the constellations did not of course change the stars, nor did it change the black emptiness that surrounds them. What it changed was the way people read the night sky.
JOHN BERGER

Change Constellation Event Imagining Night People Sky Surround Threaded
What is saved in the cinema when it achieves art is a spontaneous continuity with all mankind.
JOHN BERGER

Achieve All Art Cinema Mankind People Save Sky Spontaneous
Photography, because it stops the flow of life, is always flirting with death.
JOHN BERGER

Death Flirting Flow Life Photography
What is to happen next will take place within the four walls of the story. And this is possible because the story’s voice makes everything its own.
JOHN BERGER

Everything Four Happen Make Place Possible Story Take Wall
Paintings record what the painter remembers. Because each one of us forgets different things, a photo more than a painting may change its meaning according to who is looking at it.
JOHN BERGER

Different Forget Look Meaning Pain Remember Thing
Publicity is the life of this culture – in so far as without publicity capitalism could not survive – and at the same time publicity is its dream.
JOHN BERGER

Capitalism Culture Dream Publicity Same Time
What do drawings mean to me? I really don’t know. The activity absorbs me. I forget everything else in a way that I don’t think happens with any other activity.
JOHN BERGER

Absorb Activity Draw Else Everything Forget Happen Mean Think Thinking
A cigarette is a breathing space. It makes a parenthesis.
JOHN BERGER

Arches Breathing Cigarettes Parentless Space
A peasant becomes fond of his pig and is glad to salt away its pork.
JOHN BERGER

Animal Away Become Fond Glad Peasant Pig Pigs Pork Two

It is not usually possible in a poem or a story to make the relationship between particular and universal fully explicit. Those who try to do so end up writing parables.

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It is not usually possible in a poem or a story to make the relationship between particular and universal fully explicit. Those who try to do so end up writing parables.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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