The integrity of an artist lifts a man above the level of the world without delivering him from it. My father and mother were captives in that world, knowing they did not belong with it or in it, and yet unable to get away from it. They were in the world and not of it — not because they were saints, but in a different way: because they were artists.


The Seven Storey Mountain (1948)

Thomas Merton Quotes

The integrity of an artist lifts a man above the level of the world without delivering him from it. My father and mother were captives in that world, ...

The integrity of an artist lifts a man above the level of the world without delivering him from it. My father and mother were captives in that world, ...

The integrity of an artist lifts a man above the level of the world without delivering him from it. My father and mother were captives in that world, ...

The integrity of an artist lifts a man above the level of the world without delivering him from it. My father and mother were captives in that world, ...