Mark Doty: Love and Art

“...in the face of all dangers, in what may seem a godless region, we move forward through the agencies of love and art.”
― Mark Doty, Dog Years

“Love, I think, is a gateway to the world, not an escape from it.”
― Mark Doty

“Intimacy, says the phenomenologist Gaston Bachelard, is the highest value. I resist this statement at first. What about artistic achievement, or moral courage, or heroism, or altruistic acts, or work in the cause of social change? What about wealth or accomplishment? And yet something about it rings true, finally—that what we want is to be brought into relationship, to be inside, within. Perhaps it’s true that nothing matters more to us than that.”
― Mark Doty, Still Life with Oysters and Lemon: On Objects and Intimacy