"…The group which was organizing the New Masses gave Mayakovsky a party at a private house. It was typical of the gay twenties— jazz records, bathtub gin, dancing in shirtsleeves. Mayakovsky danced with the strength and awkwardness of a bear, and liked it. So did the girls. Then the poet was urged to read his verses. He took a little notebook out of his pocket and read his latest. We all drank too much. Mayakovsky, twice my size, lifted me to the ceiling to show his strength. I made fun of his booming voice by reciting the first two lines of his poem in mangled form without knowing their meaning.
“Take the potatoes out of your mouth,” he said.
“The revolution doesn’t need a megaphone voice,” I said. “Look at Lenin.”
“Lenin’s voice did not matter. He talked with cannon. I have no cannon, but I have my voice."
“Take the potatoes out of your mouth,” he said.
“The revolution doesn’t need a megaphone voice,” I said. “Look at Lenin.”
“Lenin’s voice did not matter. He talked with cannon. I have no cannon, but I have my voice."
"One advantage in keeping a diary is that you become aware with reassuring clarity of the changes which you constantly suffer and which in a general way are naturally believed, surmised and admitted by you, but which you’ll unconsciously deny when it comes to the point of gaining hope or peace from such an admission. In the diary you find proof that in situations which today would seem unbearable, you live, looked around and wrote down observations, that this right hand moved then as it does today, when we may be wiser because we are able to look back upon our former condition, and for that very reason have got to admit the courage of our earlier striving in which we persisted even in sheer ignorance."
"The study of dreams is particularly difficult, for we cannot examine dreams directly, we can only speak of the memory of dreams. And it is possible that the memory of dreams does not correspond exactly to the dreams themselves.
If we think of the dream as a work of fiction — and I think it is — it may be that we continue to spin tales when we wake and later when we recount them."
If we think of the dream as a work of fiction — and I think it is — it may be that we continue to spin tales when we wake and later when we recount them."
