Famous Quotes Ipsum

Imagining something is better than remembering something. when you come to the edge of all the light you know, and are about to step off into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing one of two things will happen: there will be something solid to stand on, or you will be taught how to fly. 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..... the act of writing is the act of discovering what you believe. 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. when i get a little money, i buy books; and, if any is left, i buy food and clothes. the moment of change is the only poem. lolita is famous, not i. i am an obscure, doubly obscure, novelist with an unpronounceable last name. the truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it. a day is a miniature eternity. in languages that form the word 'compassion' not from the root 'suffering' but from the root 'feeling', the word is used in approximately the same way, but to contend that it designates a bad or inferior sentiment is difficult. the secret strength of its etymology floods the word with another light and gives it a broader meaning: to have compassion (co-feeling) means not only to be able to live with others' misfortune but also able to feel with him any emotion - joy, anxiety, happiness, pain. this kind of compassion therefore signifies the maximal capacity of affective imaginations, the art of emotional telepathy. in the hierarchy of sentiments, then, it is supreme. 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. 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.' i liked how sterile my room was, cleansed of all the emotions that have ever been felt there, all the fights and lovemaking and plain rest of weary travelers wiped clean, leaving no mark on the perfectly made bed. the body of b. franklin, / printer, / like the cover of an old book, / its contents torn out / and / stripped of its lettering and gilding, / lies here / food for worms, / but the work shall not be lost, / for it will, as he believed / appear once more / in a new and more elegant edition / revised and corrected / by the author. let children walk with nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life. be still and know that i am god. can't say fairer than that. the trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat. little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune, but great minds rise above it. out yonder there is this huge world... which stands before us like a great, eternal riddle. they took all the trees / and put them in a tree museum / and they charged all the people / a dollar and a half just to see 'em / don't it always seem to go / that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone / they paved paradise / and put up a parking lot footfalls echo in the memory / down the passage we did not take / towards the door we never opened / into the rose garden 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. no man's life is ordinary to himself..

Saturday found him for the first time strolling alone through zurich, breathing in the heady smell of his freedom. new adventures hid around each corner. the future was again a secret. if the path is beautiful, let us not ask where it leads. the heights by great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but they while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the night. 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.' 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." give me a museum and i'll fill it. at the worst i accepted hollywood with the resignation of a ghost assigned to a haunted house. in memory, everything seems to happen to music. perfection is terrible; it cannot have children. what is to give light must endure burning..

Every child is an artist. the challenge is to remain an artist once he grows up. think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy. the one way of tolerating existence is to lose oneself in literature as in a perpetual orgy. poetry does not necessarily have to be beautiful to stick in the depths of our memory. poets . . . create from the very depths of the collective unconscious, voicing aloud what others only dream. i would rather be kicked with a foot than be overcome by a loud voice speaking cruel words. we are wise, wise women. we are giggling girls. on the surface, an intelligible lie; underneath, the unintelligible truth. you set up your place in my thoughts / moved in and made my thinking crowded. to laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and ignore the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or redeemed by social condition; or to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. this is to have succeeded. 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. 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. that's the way things come clear. all of a sudden. and then you realize how obvious they've been all along. i've learned that fate only takes you so far. after that, it's up to you to make it happen. pooh looked at his two paws. he knew that one of them was the right, and he knew that when you had decided which of them was the right, then the other was the left, but he never could remember how to begin. oh help! i'd better go back. oh bother! i shall have to go on. i can't do either! oh help and bother! ordinary people believe only in the possible. extraordinary people visualize not what is possible or probable, but rather what is impossible. and by visualizing the impossible, they begin to see it as possible. start by doing what's necessary, then what's possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible. perfection is achieved not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. when you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everybody will respect you. if we build a society based on honoring the earth, we build a society which is sustainable, and has the capacity to support all life forms. loss is nothing else but change, and change is nature's delight. 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. i'm at peace with the world. i'm completely serene. i've discovered my purpose in life. i know why i was put here and why everything exists... i am here so everybody can do what i want. once everybody accepts it, they'll be serene too. the unexamined life is not worth living. the human soul is very much older than the human mind. 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. i always thought of myself as a house. i was always what i lived in. it didn't need to be big. it didn't even need to be beautiful. it just needed to be mine. i became what i was meant to be. i built myself a life. i built myself a house..