No artist tolerates reality. Nietzsche said this. This is how I see the world. This = how.

David Shields' Reality Hunger, a compendium of numbered quotes from writers, philosophers, artists and other thinkers, is utterly inspiring.

I'm driven by a compulsion towards beauty. I hunger to hurl myself into the idea of things--not things as they are. Not as a fixed thing but a thing that lapses into beauty every now and then. I want to freeze that incarnation. Amplify it. Live in it.

Essentially, this is immature. An ideal.

It is therefore essential that I remain an immature idealist. If I tolerate reality, there's no need for art.