Literature - which is art married to thought, and realization untainted by reality - seems to me the end towards which all human effort would have to strive, if it were truly human and not just a welling up of our animal self. To express something is to conserve its virtue and take away its terror. Fields are greener in their description than in their actual greenness. Flowers, if described with phrases that define them in the air of the imagination, will have colours with a durability not found in cellular life.
What moves lives. What is said endures. There's nothing in life that's less real for having been well described.
Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, text 27
OK, I'm now taking back my previous comment. This passage from Pessoa just made me very happy, and also helps to explain why I've been reading so much lately. It's not simply hiding away from the world, it's more importantly a conscious and unconscious movement towards the beautiful.
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