Wade Martin Quotes

The more comfortable we become with being stupid, the deeper we will wade into the unknown and the more likely we are to make big discoveries

Here a few weeks back, when we were in Vienna, I picked up 'Martin Chuzzlewit' and waded through it. Funny, mind you, his picture of America a hundred years ago. But he shows a bunch of people along the Ohio River and in New York who were too lazy to scratch, who--

I’ve said it’s hard. Here’s how hard: everybody I know who wades deep enough into memory’s waters drowns a little. Between chapters of Stop-Time, Frank Conroy stayed drunk for weeks. Two hours after Carolyn See finished her first draft of Dreaming, she collapsed with viral meningitis, which gave her double vision: “It was my brain’s way of saying, ‘You’ve been looking where you shouldn’t be looking.’” Martin Amis reported a suffocating enervation while working on Experience. Writing fiction, however taxing, usually left him some buoyancy at day’s end; his memoir about his father drained him. Jerry Stahl relapsed while writing about his heroin addiction in Permanent Midnight.

The last of the night’s stars had vanished … all but the pair dead ahead. “It’s two stars now.” “Two eyes,” said Denyo. “The Titan sees us.” The Titan of Braavos. Old Nan had told them stories of the Titan back in Winterfell. He was a giant as tall as a mountain, and whenever Braavos stood in danger he would wake with fire in his eyes, his rocky limbs grinding and groaning as he waded out into the sea to smash the enemies. “The Braavosi feed him on the juicy pink flesh of little highborn girls,” Nan would end, and Sansa would give a stupid squeak. But Maester Luwin said the Titan was only a statue, and Old Nan’s stories were only stories.

THREE HUNDRED YEARS AFTER JESUS DIED ON A ROMAN cross, the emperor Theodosius made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. Christians, who had once been persecuted by the empire, became the empire, and those who had once denied the sword took up the sword against their neighbors. Pagan temples were destroyed, their patrons forced to convert to Christianity or die. Christians whose ancestors had been martyred in gladiatorial combat now attended the games, cheering on the bloodshed. Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. On July 15, 1099, Christian crusaders lay siege to Jerusalem, then occupied by Fatimite Arabs. They found a breach in the wall and took the city. Declaring “God wills it!” they killed every defender in their path and dashed the bodies of helpless babies against rocks. When they came upon a synagogue where many of the city’s Jews had taken refuge, they set fire to the building and burned the people inside alive. An eyewitness reported that at the Porch of Solomon, horses waded through blood. Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Through a series of centuries-long inquisitions that swept across Europe, hundreds of thousands of people, many of them women accused of witchcraft, were tortured by religious leaders charged with protecting the church from heresy. Their instruments of torture, designed to slowly inflict pain by dismembering and dislocating the body, earned nicknames like the Breast Ripper, the Head Crusher, and the Judas Chair. Many were inscribed with the phrase Soli Deo Gloria, “Glory be only to God.” Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. In a book entitled On Jews and Their Lies, reformer Martin Luther encouraged civic leaders to burn down Jewish synagogues, expel the Jewish people from their lands, and murder those who continued to practice their faith within Christian territory. “The rulers must act like a good physician who when gangrene has set in proceeds without mercy to cut, saw, and burn flesh, veins, bone, and marrow,” he wrote. Luther’s writings were later used by German officials as religious justification of the Holocaust. Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy.

It was never the wish. It was her finding the courage to pursue the life she’d only dreamed about. She’d been sleepwalking through her life, but now she’d forced her eyes open to see the world and all its splendor. She’d been wading in puddles, safe from harm, but she was unsatisfied with shallow living. There was no way she could go back to living her life in fear. She could sing. She could fail. Or she could live with a courageous heart.

The shrew's estimate was correct; it was but a short time until the two waded back around the cove, Clecky chatting animatedly. "That vermin was cheatin', y'know, saw him m'self. He tipped a seashell wrong side up with his footpaw. What a rotter! I'd hate to have that'n sittin' alongside me at supper, he'd swipe all the salad whilst I had me back turned!" Martin washed his swordblade in the water and wiped it dry on his sleeve before sheathing it. "Hah! When did you ever turn your back on a salad bowl? Any creature trying to steal food from you would starve to death.