Famous Quotes Ipsum

Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or your predecessors. try to be better than yourself. 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. we do not write in order to be understood, we write in order to understand. do the thing you fear, and the death of fear is certain. the whole difference between construction and creation is this; that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed, but a thing created is loved before it exists. there must be quite a few things a hot bath won't cure, but i don't know many of them. whenever i'm sad i'm going to die, or so nervous i can't sleep, or in love with somebody i won't be seeing for a week, i slump down just so far and then i say: 'i'll go take a hot bath.' 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. my religion is very simple. my religion is kindness. but i always think that the best way to know god is to love many things. your mind might make a connection that is useful. but true is another matter. true implies that you have found a connection that exists independent of your apprehension of it, that would exist whether you noticed it or not. and i must say that i have never seen such a connection in my life. there are times when i suspect that there are no such connections, that all links, bonds, ties, and similarities are creatures of thought and have no substance. seize the day. make your lives extraordinary. there are two ways to live your life, one is as though nothing is a miracle. the other is as though everything is a miracle..

Mostly, we authors must repeat ourselves--that's the truth. we have two or three great moving experiences in our lives--experiences so great and moving that it doesn't seem at the time that anyone else has been so caught up and pounded and dazzled and astonished and beaten and broken and rescued and illuminated and rewarded and humbled in just that way ever before. your daughter has a quick and witty tongue. i may know the word but not say it / i may know the truth but not face it / i may hear a sound, a whisper sacred and profound / but turn my head, indifferent if the truth were to be known, everyone would be wearing a scarlet letter of one form or another. the mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heav'n of hell, a hell of heav'n. these qualities are rare enough in a world where sexual performance has become as obligatory as sexual abstinence - or the pretension to it - once was. the worst by-product of the so-called sexual revolution is the substitution of performance for passion. true religion is real living; living with all one's soul, with all one's goodness and righteousness. and so i choose to go with you / as if the choice were mine to make if you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want and all that is left is a compromise. start by doing what's necessary, then what's possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible. hollywood is a place where they'll pay you 50,000 dollars for a kiss and 50 cents for your soul. there is something very wonderful in music. words are wonderful enough; but music is even more wonderful. it speaks not to our thoughts as words do; it speaks straight to our hearts and spirits, to the very core and root of our souls. music soothes us, stirs us up; it puts noble feelings in us; it melts us to tears; we know not how - it is a language by itself, just as perfect, in its way, as speech, as words. perfection is terrible; it cannot have children. moonlight is sculpture; sunlight is painting. 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 universe is made of stories, not atoms..

Never trust the artist. trust the tale. do not follow where the path may lead. go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. i always give myself such very good advice, but i very seldom follow it. one of the impressive qualities of charlotte brontë's heroines, the quality that makes them more valuable to the woman reader than anna karenina, emma bovary, and catherine earnshaw combined is their determined refusal to be romantic. there is a certain kind of kid who is so in love with words that she kisses the pictures of authors on the jackets of books. i was one. all i ever wanted was to be a writer. though this yearning now seems like aspiring to be a blacksmith in the age of the automobile, my childhood image of what a writer did bestowed superhuman powers on the profession. a writer sat privately at her desk and made public things happen. the power was godlike. the sense of accomplishment had to be the same. making words slant across the page was like making rain. flowers grew in ink. hurricanes and revolutions were stirred up by the sound of pen scratching paper. you must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. this is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. the people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, make them. every now and then go away, even briefly, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer; since to remain constantly at work will cause you to lose power. no man really becomes a fool until he stops asking questions. besides, i didn't have anything to fear anymore. maybe all post-suicidals feel that way. it's really great - it gives you a real sense of, not bravery exactly, and not recklessness, quite, but something in between the two. if i'd survived my own best attempts at dying, it probably just wasn't in the cards for me to perish young. creativity is the power to connect the seemingly unconnected. i look upon death to be as necessary to the constitution as sleep. we shall rise again refreshed in the morning. i'll pretend this is real / 'cause this is what i like best all humanity is passion; without passion, religion, history, novels, art would be ineffectual. we can't all, and some of us don't. that's all there is to it. if you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want and all that is left is a compromise. most of the dandelions had changed from suns to moons. what is to give light must endure burning. 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. ...love is not love / which alters when it alteration finds, / or bends with the remover to remove: / o no! it is an ever-fixed mark / that looks on tempests and is never shaken... a pain stabbed my heart as it did every time i saw a girl i loved who was going the opposite direction in this too-big world. 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. it occurred to him that, for the first time since his birth, life had said yes to archie jones. not simply an 'ok' or 'you-might-as-well-carry-on-since-you've-started', but a resounding affirmative. tereza knew what happens during the moment love is born: the woman cannot resist the voice calling forth her terrified soul; the man cannot resist the woman whose soul thus responds to his voice..