Famous Quotes Ipsum

My first thought about art, as a child, was that the artist brings something into the world that didn't exist before, and that he does it without destroying something else, a kind of refutation of the conservation of matter. that still seems to me its central magic, its core of joy. hope has two beautiful daughters: their names are anger and courage. anger that things are the way they are. courage to make them the way they should be. change only takes place through action. we must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee. change is an easy panacea. it takes character to stay in one place and be happy there. writers tend to devour people, themselves included. 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. weekends don't count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless. but surely to tell these tall tales and others like them would be to speed the myth, the wicked lie, that the past is always tense and the future, perfect. and as archie knows, it's not like that. it's never been like that. you're never fully dressed without a smile. sex. in america it's an obsession; in other parts of the world, a fact. what is a hero? primarily one who has conquered his fears. we don't say everything that we could / so that we can say later / "oh, you misunderstood" 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. and so i choose to go with you / as if the choice were mine to make keep your face to the sunshine, and you cannot see the shadows. we can't all, and some of us don't. that's all there is to it. start by doing what's necessary, then what's possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible. 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. in memory, everything seems to happen to music. 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 primary and most beautiful of nature's qualities is motion. if any individual live too much in relations, so that he becomes a stranger to the resources of his own nature, he falls, after awhile, into a distraction, or imbecility, from which he can only be cured by a time of isolation, which gives the renovating fountains time to rise up. seize the day. make your lives extraordinary. life is a struggle, but there's hope and beauty in the world. even though a lot of our songs are dark, there's oftentimes the strain of 'but we're powerful as individuals and we're loved and we're good and the things we struggle with are the things that teach us the most and help us to grow.' in the end, that's what matters. i live my life in widening rings..

Freedom lies in being bold. 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. 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. poets . . . create from the very depths of the collective unconscious, voicing aloud what others only dream. our day-to-day life is bombarded with fortuities, or, to be more precise, with the accidental meetings of people and events we call coincidence. as the last leaf falls it only symbolizes the end of the tree's cycle, not the end of the tree's life. so too, as we complete our life cycle, there is a new beginning as our souls journey onward. the difference between the possible and the impossible lies in a person's determination. the flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of all. the world breaks us all. afterward, some are stronger at the broken places. i preach there are all kinds of truths, your truth and somebody else's. but behind all of them there is only one truth and that is that there's no truth. when christ said: "i was hungry and you fed me," he didn't mean only the hunger for bread and for food; he also meant the hunger to be loved. jesus himself experienced this loneliness. he came amongst his own and his own received him not, and it hurt him then and it has kept on hurting him. the same hunger, the same loneliness, the same having no one to be accepted by and to be loved and wanted by. every human being in that case resembles christ in his loneliness; and that is the hardest part, that's real hunger..

I think night-time is dark so you can imagine with less distraction. tolerating blind obedience in the name of patriotism or religion ultimately takes our lives. an illiterate underbred book . . . the book of a self-taught working man . . . egotistic, insistent, raw, striking, and ultimately nauseating. 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 i am woman, hear me roar! 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. to find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter... to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird's nest or a wildflower in spring - these are some of the rewards of the simple life. 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. 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. simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. our day-to-day life is bombarded with fortuities, or, to be more precise, with the accidental meetings of people and events we call coincidence. it is not upon you alone the dark patches fall. even for me life had its gleams of sunshine. there are two kinds of people: those who say to god, "thy will be done," and those to whom god says, "all right, then, have it your way." surely a king who loves pleasure is less dangerous than one who loves glory. we shall not cease from exploration - and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started - and know the place for the first time. you teach what you have to learn. it is not necessary to have achieved perfection to speak of perfection. it is not necessary to have achieved mastery to speak of mastery. it is not necessary to have achieved the highest level of evolution to speak of the highest level of evolution. seek only to be genuine. strive to be sincere. the flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of all. 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. if we could stay that way forever; if we could stay filled to the brim and floating toward the darkness, never suffocating or dying - . watching stars without you, my soul cries goodbyes always make my throat hurt . . . i need more hellos. 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. are there not chapters in everybody's life that seem to be nothing, and yet affect all the rest of history? we grow neither better nor worse as we get old, but more like ourselves. the unexamined life is not worth living..