Get new glasses. Finish Z piece. Get a day job. “While reading, a child bodies forth the written descriptions with images based on his or her own actual visual experience, except when the book itself has elaborate illustrations. The cinema, by contrast, directly nourishes a child’s imagery—and, moreover, instructs him or her about ideal forms of behaviour (even comedies give a risible, negative example of how not to act). From the movies we learn precisely how to hold a champagne flute, kiss a mistress, pull a trigger, turn a phrase. In romantic or adventure films, these feats are perfectly executed and beautifully lit. The movies spoil us for life; nothing ever lives up to them.” (Edmund White, Genet)
“Since a certain age, my life has been, mainly, one long – too long – attempt to write the perfect suicide note. I have felt, like a stab wound, the certainty that I could not die without doing so. The perfect suicide note, of course, must be read, and the reader must care. Perhaps the most difficult part of all this has been trying to bring about – or helplessly waiting for – the right conditions. The greatest enemy of art and of suicide is the world’s indifference, though, in another sense, this is precisely what drives a person towards both.” (Quentin Crisp, Suicide Watch)