When I see young men doing so wonderfully well in athletics, I don't feel angry at them. I feel jealous of them. I wish that some ...of my boys in writing would do the same thing.... You must have form--performance. The thing itself is indescribable, but it is felt like athletic form. To have form, feel form in sports--and by analogy feel form in verse. One works and waits for form in both. As I said, the person who spends his time criticizing the play around him will never write poetry. He will write criticism.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In baseball there are generalists, who keep their eye on the ball and see the big picture; football is full of special-duty charac...ters who are very limited in terms of their range but have depth. Baseball represents America before the frontier ended, when there was plenty of space and plenty of time, and philosophic anarchists roamed around on verdant fields "doing their thing" with a free and reckless abandon. The game is relaxing and not particularly taxing on the players, who play many times each week. Football is tremendously difficult on the players and is so tiring that sixty minutes of clock time--which amounts to several hours of real time--exhausts them. Baseball developed when we thought nature was a limitless reservoir and we would always live in abundance. Football reflects a different world view; everything has to be fought for, resources are precious, hostile people (guards, monster men) are everywhere and in such a world you have to grab what you can.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A tragic poet will never think of grouping around the chief character in his play secondary characters to serve as simplified copi...es, so to speak, of the former. The hero of a tragedy represents an individuality unique of its kind. It may be possible to imitate him, but then we shall be passing, whether consciously or not, from the tragic to the comic. No one is like him, because he is like no one. But a remarkable instinct, on the contrary, impels the comic poet, once he has elaborated his central character, to cause other characters, displaying the same general traits, to revolve as satellites round him.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
[Children] need time to stare at a wall, daydream over a picture book, make mud pies, kick a ball around, whistle a tune or play t...he kazoo--to do the things today's adults had time to do when they were growing up.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Fences, unlike punishments, clearly mark out the perimeters of any specified territory. Young children learn where it is permissib...le to play, because their backyard fence plainly outlines the safe area. They learn about the invisible fence that surrounds the stove, and that Grandma has an invisible barrier around her cabinet of antique teacups.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Girls . . . were allowed to play in the house . . . and boys were sent outdoors. . . . Boys ran around in the yard with toy guns g...oing kksshh-kksshh, fighting wars for made-up reasons and arguing about who was dead, while girls stayed inside and played with dolls, creating complex family groups and learning how to solve problems through negotiation and roleplaying. Which gender is better equipped, on the whole, to live an adult life, would you guess?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Play is a major avenue for learning to manage anxiety. It gives the child a safe space where she can experiment at will, suspendin...g the rules and constraints of physical and social reality. In play, the child becomes master rather than subject.... Play allows the child to transcend passivity and to become the active doer of what happens around her.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Teach a child to play solitaire, and she'll be able to entertain herself when there's no one around. Teach her tennis, and she'll ...know what to do when she's on a court. But raise her to feel comfortable in nature, and the whole planet is her home.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... for the modern soul, for which it is mere child's play to bridge oceans and continents, there is nothing so impossible as to f...ind the contact with the souls dwelling just around the corner.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »