‘Come to the edge’, he said.
They said, ‘We are afraid.’
‘Come to the edge’, he said.
They came.
He pushed them …
and they flew.
– Guillaume Apollinaire
It’s normal to get a bit dizzy when you look down. You’re at the edge and it’s no shame to be affraid. But you’ll never learn to fly if you’re too scared to get anywhere near. You have a marvelous opportunity to fly – you have the wings of technology. Get them. Use them. Do not be affraid.
May 28, 2007 at 11:17 pm
The lines were NOT written by Apollinaire, though they are very frequently mis-attributed to him. They were, in fact, written ABOUT him by English poet Christopher Logue, who wrote them, titled “Apollinaire said,” for a mounting of some of Apollinaire’s work shown at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London.