Happy birthday, Leonora Carrington! Here are some quotes from the artist and writer.
“There are things that are not sayable. That’s why we have art.”
“‘My head is a bier for my thoughts, my body a coffin.'”
“Anyway, Art is a magic which makes the hours melt away and even days dissolve into seconds.”
“Houses are really bodies. We connect ourselves with walls, roofs, & objects just as we hang on to our livers, skeletons, flesh & bloodstream. I am no beauty, no mirror is necessary to assure me of this absolute fact. Nevertheless I have a death grip on this haggard frame as if it were the limpid body of Venus herself.”
“How can one accept the totally unknown? We know nothing whatever about it, even if it happens to everyone, to everybody! Animals, vegetables, minerals—everything dies. How can you reconcile with something you know nothing about? Is there anything else? What do you want to know?”
“Do not give up hope entirely in spite of the horror of your situation. I am mobilising all my mental capacities to obtain your unconditional freedom.”
John Madera is the author of Nervosities (Anti-Oedipus Press, 2024). His other fiction is published in Conjunctions, Salt Hill, The &Now Awards 2: The Best Innovative Writing, and many other journals. His nonfiction is published in American Book Review, Bookforum, The Review of Contemporary Fiction, Rain Taxi: Review of Books, The Believer, The Brooklyn Rail, and many other venues. Recipient of an M.F.A. in Literary Arts from Brown University, New York State Council on the Arts awardee John Madera lives in New York City, Rhizomatic and manages and edits Big Other.
