A foul-mouthed oaf, a drunken laborer lying in a drain, a beaten wife with blackened eyes and torn clothes, cannot be made romantic to a child who sees how other children suffer from bad-tempered parents, from drunken fathers to termagant mothers.
Joyce CaryGod is a character, a real and consistent being, or He is nothing. If God did a miracle He would deny His own nature and the universe would simply blow up, vanish, become nothing.
Joyce CaryA friend of mine tells me that a Beethoven symphony can solve for him a problem of conduct. I've no doubt that it does so simply by giving him a sense of the tragedy and the greatness of human destiny, which makes his personal anxieties seem small, which throws them into a new proportion.
Joyce Cary