9 quotes
How does the fool build his paradise?—out of the crumbling bricks of illusion and the watery cement of hope.
The Game of X (1965)
Man is the only animal whose fear of embarrassment can overcome his instinct for self-preservation.
The Game of X (1965)
In the maze of Venice it is difficult to find anything quickly; but it is equally difficult to lose anything for long.
The Game of X (1965)
He had poured too much gilt on the lily; in striving to create a paragon, he had only succeeded in producing a paradox.
The Game of X (1965)
One does not fall in love by exercise of reason and good taste; one simply falls, and invents ingenious reasons afterwards. One falls in love with one’s fatality, whether it be a woman or a city.
The Game of X (1965)
Why, after all, did I have to live with reality? Wasn’t illusion a perfectly suitable condition?
The Game of X (1965)
I gave up my dream of flight and rebirth, and invented a proverb to fit the occasion: he who produces an illusion is more likely than anyone else to be taken in by it. The thought gave me very little comfort.
The Game of X (1965)
The coincidence would be too great anywhere except in Venice, where the machinery of illusion delights in casting up the improbable, the unusual, and the unexpected. There is a price, of course; by tampering with probabilities, Venice induces a deterioration in the commonplace—to her disadvantage.
The Game of X (1965)
Above all, I share in our national preoccupation with exotic danger. Strange lands and mysterious women are never far from my thoughts. My manner is commonplace; but always, as I walk down the matter-of-fact streets of my city, I am listening to waves explode across a coral reef, or wandering through weed-strangled alleys in some lost jungle civilization.
The Game of X (1965)