Paul Bowles
Paul Bowles
Paul Frederic Bowleswas an American expatriate composer, author, and translator. He became associated with Tangier, Morocco, where he settled in 1947 and lived for 52 years to the end of his life...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionComposer
Date of Birth30 December 1910
CountryUnited States of America
moving differences diversity
Each time I go to a place I have not seen before I hope it will be as different as possible from the places I already know. I assume it is natural for a traveler to seek diversity, and that it is the human element that makes him most aware of difference. If people and their manner of living were alike everywhere, there would not be much point in moving from one place to another.
moving people ifs
If people and their manner of living were alike everywhere, there would not be much point in moving from one place to another.
moving home years
Whereas the tourist generally hurries back home at the end of a few weeks or months, the traveler belonging no more to one place than to the next, moves slowly over periods of years, from one part of the earth to another. Indeed, he would have found it difficult to tell, among the many places he had lived, precisely where it was he had felt most at home.
beneath hides horror lies people
The sky hides the night behind it, and shelters the people beneath from the horror that lies above.
fall hanging-on way
We've never managed, either one of us, to get all the way into life. We're hanging on to the outside for all we're worth, convinced we're going to fall off at the next bump.
soul body parts-of-the-body
The soul is the weariest part of the body.
thinking people ego
No one can ever heap enough insults upon me to suit my taste. I think we all really thrive on hostility, because it's the most intense kind of massage the ego can undergo. Other people's indifference is the only horror.
civilization differences important
[A]nother important difference between tourist and traveler is that the former accepts his own civilization without question; not so the traveler, who compares it with the others, and rejects those elements he finds not to his liking.
stars water black
Every second, ten stars set behind the black water in the west.
knows ifs
If you don't know why you like a thing, it is usually worth your while to attempt to find out.
dark curves silence
There is a way to master silence Control its curves, inhabit its dark corners And listen to the hiss of time outside
buddhist prayer thinking
The Hindus are busy letting themselves be seen riding in Cadillacs instead of smearing themselves with sandalwood paste and bowing in front of Ganpati. The Moslems would rather miss evening prayer than the new Disney movie. The Buddhists think it's more important to take over in the name of Stalin and Progress than to meditate on the four basic sorrows. And we don't even have to mention Christianity or Judaism.
age tangible spirit
Not all the ravages caused by our merciless age are tangible ones. The subtler forms of destruction, those involving only the human spirit, are the most to be dreaded.
worry doubt dry
That was what he wanted, to be baked dry and hard, to feel the vaporous worries evaporating one by one, to know finally that all the damp little doubts and hesitations that covered the floor of his being were curling up and expiring in the great furnace-blast of the sun.