Famous Quotes Ipsum

The way i see it, the men that i'm with, whoever they are, it's like look, you have to accept that i like ice cream, and i know it shows up on my hips but if you can't accept that, then leave. go away. toodles. it is non-negotiable. i am not quite sure how writing changes things, but i know that it does. it is indirect - like the trails of earthworms aerating the earth. it is not always deliberate - like the tails of glowing dust dragged by comets. but it does have an effect on the cosmos. before things are written down they don't exist in quite the same way. the act of fixing them in words gives them a kind of currency that can be traded. all good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath. i would rather be kicked with a foot than be overcome by a loud voice speaking cruel words. words do not express thoughts very well. they always become a little different immediately after they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish. she walks in beauty, like the night / of cloudless climes and starry skies; / and all that's best of dark and bright / meet in her aspect and her eyes: / thus mellow'd to that tender light / which heaven to gaudy day denies i am woman, hear me roar! in our minds we can understand the highest god, but so long as we are in human bodies living in this rich and varied world, we need images that we can see and touch and love. and each one of them shows us a part of that supreme power, and all the parts together give us a glimpse of the whole. so the people who insist there is only one god are right, and so are those who honor the many, but they are right in different ways. finish each day and be done with it. you have done what you could. some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense. we are each of us angels with only one wing. and we can only fly embracing each other..

Don't cry over anyone who won't cry over you. for as long as i can remember, i had been transparent to myself, unselfconscious, learning, doing, most of every day. now i was in my own way; i myself was a dark object i could not ignore. i couldn't remember how to forget myself. i didn't want to think about myself, to reckon myself in, to deal with myself every livelong minute on top of everything else - but swerve as i might, i couldn't avoid it. i was a boulder blocking my own path. i was a dog barking between my own ears, a barking dog who wouldn't hush. so this was adolescence..... anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old. to read a writer, for me, is not merely to get an idea of what he says, but to go off with him and travel in his company. though she be but little, she is fierce. perhaps you too have met in the cause of your life women of that sort, who are self-luminous and shine in the dark, who are phosphorescent, like touchwood. on the surface, an intelligible lie; underneath, the unintelligible truth. sleeping is curiously addictive. you are part of the world, but not in it, and somehow that just seems right. it seems enough. it's at night, when perhaps we should be dreaming, that the mind is most clear, that we are most able to hold all our life in the palm of our skull. i don't know if anyone has ever pointed out that great attraction of insomnia before, but it is so; the night seems to release a little more of our vast backward inheritance of instincts and feelings; as with the dawn, a little honey is allowed to ooze between the lips of the sandwich, a little of the stuff of dreams to drip into the waking mind. i wish i believed, as j. b. priestley did, that consciousness continues after disembodiment or death, not forever, but for a long while. three score years and ten is such a stingy ration of time, when there is so much time around. perhaps that's why some of us are insomniacs; night is so precious that it would be pusillanimous to sleep all through it! a "bad night" is not always a bad thing. have you ever heard the wonderful silence just before the dawn? or the quiet and calm just as a storm ends? or perhaps you know the silence when you haven't the answer to a question you've been asked, or the hush of a country road at night, or the expectant pause in a roomful of people when someone is just about to speak, or, most beautiful of all, the moment after the door closes and you're all alone in the whole house? each one is different, you know, and all very beautiful, if you listen carefully. one thing i've learned all these years is not to make love when you really don't feel it; there's probably nothing worse you can do to yourself than that. question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there is one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blind-folded fear. what is a hero? primarily one who has conquered his fears. doing. what you'll discover will be wonderful. what you'll discover will be yourself. the soul is an emanation of the divinity, a part of the soul of the world, a ray from the source of light. it comes from without into the human body, as into a temporary abode, it goes out of it anew; it wanders in ethereal regions, it returns to visit.... it passes into other habitations, for the soul is immortal. the fear of death follows from the fear of life. a man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time. it is not upon you alone the dark patches fall. but to stand in the sun and melt into the wind? i'll pretend this is real / 'cause this is what i like best beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. the least we can do is try to be there. if i had a formula for bypassing trouble, i wouldn't pass it around. wouldn't be doing anybody a favor. trouble creates a capacity to handle it. i don't say embrace trouble. that's as bad as treating it as an enemy. but i do say, meet it as a friend, for you'll see a lot of it and had better be on speaking terms with it. i am young. i am younger each year at the first snow. when i see it, suddenly, in the air, all little and white and moving; then i am in love again and very young and i believe everything. christ is in the manger and santa in heaven. the officials thought it was a cruel joke to leave us stranded in the desert with no way to get home. what they didn't realize was that we were home, soul-centered and strong, women who recognized the sweet smell of sage as fuel for our spirits. some things are true whether you believe them or not. the fact is, i was a trifle beside myself; or rather out of myself, as the french would say: i was conscious that at moment's mutiny had already rendered me liable to strange penalties and, like any other rebel slave, i felt resolved, in my desperation, to go to all lengths. it is possible to live twenty-four hours a day in a state of love. every movement, every glance, every thought, and every word can be infused with love. i think the loneliest thing is to be alone with another person. i'd rather be by myself than with someone who has no idea who i am. years ago i discovered the meaning of life but forgot to write it down. no man's life is ordinary to himself. we are the music makers and we are the dreamers of dreams..

Tolerating blind obedience in the name of patriotism or religion ultimately takes our lives. action is eloquence. don't cry over anyone who won't cry over you. think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy. in tereza's eyes, books were the emblems of a secret brotherhood. for she had but a single weapon against the world of crudity surrounding her: the books she took out of the municipal library, and above all, the novels. she had read any number of them, from fielding to thomas mann. they not only offered her the possibility of an imaginary escape from a life she found unsatisfying; they also had a meaning for her as physical objects: she loved to walk down the street with a book under her arm. it had the same significance for her as an elegant cane for the dandy a century ago. it differentiated her from the others. poetry does not necessarily have to be beautiful to stick in the depths of our memory. i have not lived as a woman. i've lived as a man. i've just done what i damn well wanted to and i've made enough money to support myself and i ain't afraid of being alone. the change of life comes when you meet yourself at a crossroads and you decide whether to be honest or not before you die. any job a man can do to make his way in the world is a decent job as long as he works hard and does his best. god didn't put sweat on a man's body for no reason. he put it there so he could work hard, cleanse himself and feel proud. hard workin' folks only smell bad to some folks who have nothing better to do but stick their noses in the air. if a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as michelangelo painted, or beethoven composed music, or shakespeare composed poetry. he should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well. sleeping is curiously addictive. you are part of the world, but not in it, and somehow that just seems right. it seems enough. have you ever heard the wonderful silence just before the dawn? or the quiet and calm just as a storm ends? or perhaps you know the silence when you haven't the answer to a question you've been asked, or the hush of a country road at night, or the expectant pause in a roomful of people when someone is just about to speak, or, most beautiful of all, the moment after the door closes and you're all alone in the whole house? each one is different, you know, and all very beautiful, if you listen carefully. her guilty conscience was as vague as original sin. there has never been an answer. there never will be an answer. that's the answer. when you get into a tight place and it seems you can't go on, hold on, for that's just the place and the time that the tide will turn. millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy sunday afternoon. watching a peaceful death of a human being reminds us of a falling star; one of a million lights in a vast sky that flares up for a brief moment only to disappear into the endless night forever. can't say fairer than that. even for me life had its gleams of sunshine. it's so sweet, i feel like my teeth are rotting when i listen to the radio. fortune does not change men, it unmasks them. one does not love a place the less for having suffered in it unless it has all been suffering, nothing but suffering. music is well said to be the speech of angels; in fact, nothing among the utterances allowed to men is felt to be so divine. it brings us nearer to the infinite. maybe that's not exactly how it happened. but that's the way it should have happened. and that's the way i like to remember it. i took us for better and i took us for worse / don't you ever forget it / now the steel bars between me and a promise / suddenly bend with ease / the closer i'm bound in love to you / the closer i am to free to conquer loneliness we shall each have to assume the sacred responsibility of becoming a complete person. and most of all, to define ourselves without always including someone else in the definition. to live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else. there i am in younger days, stargazing / painting picture perfect maps / of how my life and love would be / not counting the unmarked paths / of misdirection / my compass, faith in love's perfection / i missed ten million miles of road / i should have seen.