Don DeLillo
Quote
As always when he worked with this much concentration he began to feel a sense of introverting pressure. There was no way out once he was in, no genuine rest, no one to talk to who was capable of understanding the complexity (simplicity) of the problem or the approaches to a tentative solution. There came a time in every prolonged effort when he had a moment of near panic, or "terror in a lonely place," the original semantic content of the word. The lonely place was his own mind. As a mathematician he was free from subjection to reality, free to impose his ideas and designs on his own test environment. The only valid standard for his work, its critical point (zero or infinity), was the beauty it possessed, the deft strength of his mathematical reasoning. THe work's ultimate value was simply what it revealed about the nature of his intellect. What was at stake, in effect, was his own principle of intelligence or individual consciousness; his identity, in short. This was the infalling trap, the source of art's private involvement with obsession and despair, neither more nor less than the artist's self-containment, a mental state that led to storms of overwork and extended stretches of depression, that brought on indifference to life and at times the need to regurgitate it, to seek the level of expelled matter. Of course, the sense at the end of a serious effort, if the end is reached successfully, is one of lyrical exhilaration. There is air to breathe and a place to stand. The work gradually reveals its attachment to the charged particles of other minds, men now historical, the rediscovered dead; to the main structure of mathematical thought; perhaps even to reality itself, the so-called sum of things. It is possible to stand in time's pinewood dust and admire one's own veronicas and pavanes.
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Similar Crossword Answers
| Answer | Clues |
|---|---|
| ART | 2083 clues |
| RELIEF | 232 clues |
| MIND | 222 clues |
| DOUBT | 221 clues |
| DEATH | 196 clues |
| DEPRESSION | 160 clues |
| SARCASM | 114 clues |
| GHOSTS | 91 clues |
| THOUGHT | 73 clues |
| OBSESSION | 69 clues |
| DESPAIR | 68 clues |
| CONCENTRATION | 50 clues |
| SUSPICION | 41 clues |
| SEXISM | 38 clues |
| LONELINESS | 36 clues |
| ADULTERY | 28 clues |
| FEMINISM | 10 clues |
| MISOGYNY | 8 clues |
| PATRIARCHY | 3 clues |
Similar crossword clues
- Don DeLillo's "__ II" 81.48%
- Don DeLillo novel 78.57%
- Author DeLillo 72.00%
- "___ II" (Don DeLillo novel) 70.97%
- Don DeLillo's "___ II" (1991) 68.75%
- "Don't tell __!" 66.67%
- Don't yell ___ 66.67%
- Novelist DeLillo 66.67%
- 1988 Don DeLillo novel 66.67%
- 1985 Don DeLillo novel 66.67%
- "Don't be silly!" 64.00%
- Don Ho's "hello" 64.00%
- Writer DeLillo 64.00%
- Don't delay 63.64%
- Don't allow 63.64%
- "Don't have __!" ("Chill!") 59.26%
- "Don't dillydally!" 59.26%
- "Don't ___, don't tell" 59.26%
- "___ II," DeLillo novel 59.26%
- Don't deceive 58.33%
Related word tools
Often perfumed powder
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A
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Hint 1 meaning
A soft mineral of a soapy feel and a greenish, whitish, or
grayish color, usually occurring in foliated masses. It is hydrous
silicate of magnesia. Steatite, or soapstone, is a compact granular
variety.
Hint 2 anagram
ALTC
Hint 3 another clue
BABY DOCTOR FOR SHORT
8 +1