Novelty and Security: the security of novelty, the novelty of security. Always the full thing, the whole subject, the true subject, stood just behind the one you found yourself contemplating. The trick, but it wasn't a trick, was to take up at once the thing you saw and the reason you saw it as well; to always bite off more than you could chew, and then chew it. If it were self-indulgence for him to cut and polish his semiprecious memories, and yet seem like danger, like a struggle he was unfit for, then self-indulgence was a potent force, he must examine it, he must reckon with it. . John Crowley
About This Quote

The quote above is from the novel “The Magic Mountain” written by Thomas Mann. In the book, it is written that one shouldn't be afraid to grow and take on obstacles. You should always be ambitious and not be afraid to take on challenges. You should never be afraid of change, don't settle for what you know, and instead challenge yourself and grow as a person.

Source: Novelty: Four Stories

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  3. When he was in college, a famous poet made a useful distinction for him. He had drunk enough in the poet's company to be compelled to describe to him a poem he was thinking of. It would be a monologue of sorts, the self-contemplation of...

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