Three thousand pages is intimidating. Two-hundred fifteen word sentences is dizzying. Paragraphs pages long are lulling. And then💥! The Sentence. An E = mc2 sentence of simple, concise clarity, yet of universal applicability, of transcendent wisdom. You miss it unless you read every word. Volume II, Cities of the Plain, Part Two: Chapter One, page 674, the paragraph begins,
That of a lady who came to greet me, addressing me by my name, was greater still. I tried to recall hers as I talked to her...But my attention...the inward region...these memories of her lingered, was unable to discover her name there. ...
The paragraph goes on for two full pages. Continuing,
It was there none the less. My thoughts began playing a sort of game with it to grasp its outlines, its initial letter...It was a labour in vain; I could more or less sense its mass, its weight...I said to myself: "That's not it." Certainly my mind would have been capable of creating the most difficult names. Unfortunately, it was not called upon to create but to reproduce. Any mental activity is easy if it need not be subjected to reality.
Boom. In the margin twenty years ago I wrote, "Chinese artist: It's easy to paint a dragon. Nobody knows what it looks like."
