He knew very well that love could be like the most beautiful singing, that it could make death inconsequential, that it existed in forms so pure and strong that it was capable of reordering the universe. He knew this, and that he lacked it, and yet as he stood in the courtyard of the Palazzo Venezia, watching diplomats file quietly out the gate, he was content, for he suspected that to command the profoundest love might in the end be far less beautiful a thing than to suffer its absence.
Mark HelprinI'm not afraid," Rafi said. "Why not?" "If I die tomorrow it will have been useless to have been afraid today.
Mark HelprinWhat I really like to do is to sit quietly and write. All that other stuff is a problem. Publication to reception to negotiation to... everything, it's a problem. And I like to sit outside for long periods of time and just be in the tranquility of nature. That's what I like.
Mark HelprinIt's a defining difference, curiosity. I've never known a stupid person who was curious, or a curious person who was stupid.
Mark HelprinI have a particular dislike of human pride. And if you think that you can engineer outcomes, that's a manifestation of pride. Among other things, it's impractical. It just doesn't work. The world doesn't work that way.
Mark HelprinThe horse could not do without Manhattan. It drew him like a magnet, like a vacuum, like oats, or a mare, or an open, never-ending, tree-lined road.
Mark HelprinRigel, Betelgeuse, and Orion. There was no finer church, no finer choir, than the stars speaking in silence to the many consumptives silently condemned, a legion upon the dark rooftops. The wind came down from the north like a runner in lacrosse, violent and hard, to batter every living thing. They were there, each one alone in conversation with the stars, mining ephemeral love from cold and distant light.
Mark Helprin