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. not being beautiful was the true blessing.... not being beautiful forced me to develop my inner resources. the pretty girl has a handicap to overcome. poets . . . create from the very depths of the collective unconscious, voicing aloud what others only dream. ultimately, the bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or friendship, is conversation. on the surface, an intelligible lie; underneath, the unintelligible truth. 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. there are no mistakes, no coincidences. all events are blessings given to us to learn from. it is wrong, then, to chide the novel for being fascinated by mysterious coincidences (like the meeting of anna, vronsky, the railway station and death, or the meeting of beethoven, tomas, tereza, and the cognac), but it is right to chide man for being blind to such coincidences in his daily life. for he thereby deprives his life of a dimension of beauty. destiny is not what is already made; destiny is what we are making. many people think that we are in the hands of destiny, driven in whatever direction life desires or wills, but really, we are the masters of our destiny, especially from the moment we realize this fact. man is responsible for his rise and fall. i look upon death to be as necessary to the constitution as sleep. we shall rise again refreshed in the morning. why do we kill people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong? bush thinks he is still living in the age of cowboys, and that the world is like texas with himself as sheriff. we don't see things as they are - we see them as we are. the world breaks us all. afterward, some are stronger at the broken places. thoreau once said most men lead lives of quiet desperation... don't be resigned to that. live life! 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..

Imagination is more powerful than knowledge. security is mostly a superstition. it does not exist in nature...life is either a daring adventure or nothing. i don't want my hair cut! i don't want my eyebrows up or down. i want them right where they are! i'm leaving now, and if anyone so much as makes a move to stop me, there'll be plenty of hair cut and it won't be mine! 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. do you understand, / child, how the moon, the tide / is in our own image? 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. the greatest complexity is the greatest simplicity. the more "complex" a system is, the more simple is its design. indeed, it is utterly elegant in its simplicity. the master understands this. that is why a highly evolved being lives in utter simplicity. that's the way things come clear. all of a sudden. and then you realize how obvious they've been all along. there are no mistakes, no coincidences. all events are blessings given to us to learn from. compassion can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces all living creatures and does not limit itself to mankind. when the morning's freshness has been replaced by the weariness of midday, when the leg muscles give under the strain, the climb seems endless, and suddenly nothing will go quite as you wish - it is then that you must not hesitate. 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 shall not die of a cold. i shall die of having lived. i mean, even the most spiritual person loves to go shopping. 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. you can't help respecting anybody who can spell tuesday, even if he doesn't spell it right. when you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everybody will respect you. the world breaks us all. afterward, some are stronger at the broken places. 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 i think of love, and you, and my heart grows full and warm, and my breath stands still..

The engine that gives its mysterious inner life to a work of art must be the subterranean expression of a wish, working its way to the surface of a narrative. our collective will to resist what is unjust is like a fire that cannot be put out. love is a great beautifier. 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. 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 if you do not tell the truth about yourself, you cannot tell it about other people. either you think, or else others have to think for you and take power from you, pervert and discipline your natural tastes, civilize and sterilize you. 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. 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. 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. it's amazing the clarity that comes with psychotic jealousy. there are no mistakes, no coincidences. all events are blessings given to us to learn from. call it fate, call it luck, call it karma. i believe everything happens for a reason. the cure for everything is salt water: sweat, tears, or the sea. 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 look upon death to be as necessary to the constitution as sleep. we shall rise again refreshed in the morning. it is not upon you alone the dark patches fall. the realization that he was utterly powerless was like the blow of a sledgehammer, yet it was curiously as well. no one was forcing him into a decision. religion is what the individual does with his own solitariness. the difference between the possible and the impossible lies in a person's determination. he who has a 'why' to live can bear almost any 'how'. 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. every man's memory is his private literature. doubt thou the stars are fine / doubt that the sun doth move / doubt truth be a liar / but never doubt i love. i have the sense to recognize / that i don't know how to let you go art thou pale for weariness / of climbing heaven and gazing on earth / wandering companionless... the unexamined life is not worth living. both my wife and daughter think i'm this gigantic loser and they're right.