Peter Porter Quote

Once a thing's painted it's calm, and I thought, even if it shows a massacre of the innocents, the blade is still lifted, the blood isn't on the floor. I'd been particularly struck by this ridiculous little saint in San Gemignano who lay down on a plank aged fifteen and never got off it again, the saint of the town. And I thought, one's own body, one hopes, will be as calm as possible, and that's the calm country we actually live in rather than the other country.