Famous Quotes Ipsum

In the artist's own experience, of course, art is fundamentally indefinable, unsayable; there is something sacred about its demands upon the soul, something inherently mysterious in the forms it takes, no less than its contents. i saw the angel in the marble and carved until i set him free. if the path is beautiful, let us not ask where it leads. 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. 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. personally, i would sooner have written alice in wonderland than the whole encyclopedia britannica. he had a word, too. love, he called it. but i had been used to words for a long time. i knew that that word was like the other, just a shape to fill a lack; that when the right time came, you wouldn't need a word for that any more than for pride or fear. what is unnamed, undepicted in images, whatever is omitted from the biography, censored in collections of letters, whatever is misnamed as something else, made difficult to come by, whatever is buried in the memory by the collapse of meaning under an inadequate or lying language - this will become not merely unspoken but unspeakable.... all silence has a meaning. hell has no fury like women's fury. the opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth. truth indeed rather alleviates than hurts, and will always bear up against falsehood, as oil does above water. be content with what you have, rejoice in the way things are. when you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you. it isn't for the moment you are struck that you need courage, but for the long uphill climb back to sanity and faith and security. there is no greater hell than to be a prisoner of fear. one of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn't do. from my rotting body, flowers shall grow and i am in them and that is eternity. a man can no more diminish god's glory by refusing to worship him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell. i look upon death to be as necessary to the constitution as sleep. we shall rise again refreshed in the morning. two paths diverged in a wood, and i - i took the one less traveled by. and that has made all the difference. i say to mankind, be not curious about god. for i, who am curious about each, am not curious about god - i hear and behold god in every object, yet understand god not in the least. surely a king who loves pleasure is less dangerous than one who loves glory. how pleased can one sun setting make you if you humble yourself to it? how grateful can you really say that you are just to be here and live through it? i love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress and grow brave by reflection. the universe is made of stories, not atoms. 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. footfalls echo in the memory / down the passage we did not take / towards the door we never opened / into the rose garden 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 loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty. a life of self-indulgence, if led with a whole heart, may also bring a certain wisdom. i must pack my short life full of interesting events and creative activity. philosophy and aesthetic contemplation are not enough. i intend to do everything possible to broaden my experiences and allow myself to reach the fullest development..

Tolerating blind obedience in the name of patriotism or religion ultimately takes our lives. thou shalt not be a victim. thou shalt not be a perpetrator. above all, thou shalt not be a bystander. the one way of tolerating existence is to lose oneself in literature as in a perpetual orgy. 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. talking with you is sort of the conversational equivalent of an out of body experience. and if tonight my soul may find her peace / in sleep, and sink in good oblivion, / and in the morning wake like a new-opened flower / then i have been dipped again in god, and new-created. 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. great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion. surely a king who loves pleasure is less dangerous than one who loves glory. moonlight is sculpture; sunlight is painting. 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. a memory without a blot of contamination must be an exquisite treasure, an inexhaustible source of pure refreshment to love another person is to see the face of god. i think of love, and you, and my heart grows full and warm, and my breath stands still. the unexamined life is not worth living. both my wife and daughter think i'm this gigantic loser and they're right.

Words do not express thoughts very well. they always become a little different immediately after they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish. if you do not tell the truth about yourself, you cannot tell it about other people. there has never been an answer. there never will be an answer. that's the answer. all religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. all these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom. can't say fairer than that..