he cannot direct his own destiny with dignity or wisdom for ten consecutive minutes

October, particularly on the dark and murky days, reminds me of Thomas Wolfe. To honor that memory, and another that comes every year at this time (about which/whom I will write in a day or two, when I've had sufficient time upon which to mull it), I offer this, from You Can't Go Home Again.

“This is man: a writer of books, a putter-down of words, a painter of pictures, a maker of ten thousand philosophies. He grows passionate over ideas, he hurls scorn and mockery at another's work, he finds the one way, the true way, for himself, and calls all others false--yet in the billion books upon the shelves there is not one that can tell him how to draw a single fleeting breath in peace and comfort. He makes histories of the universe, he directs the destiny of the nations, but he does not know his own history, and he cannot direct his own destiny with dignity or wisdom for ten consecutive minutes.”