Famous Quotes Ipsum

The individual is born of nature, but the artist is born of that individual, yearning to transcend the merely "natural" and to make complete that which, existentially, is forever incomplete, unrealized. 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. a day is a miniature eternity. sleeping is curiously addictive. you are part of the world, but not in it, and somehow that just seems right. it seems enough. i've learned that fate only takes you so far. after that, it's up to you to make it happen. creativity is the power to connect the seemingly unconnected. oh help! i'd better go back. oh bother! i shall have to go on. i can't do either! oh help and bother! enough! or too much. 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." the person who tries to live alone will not succeed as a human being. his heart withers if it does not answer another heart. his mind shrinks away if he hears only the echoes of his own thoughts and finds no other inspiration..

Imagining something is better than remembering something. the artist's life is in his work, and this is the place to observe him. it's important to have a voice; it's more important to use it. action is eloquence. 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. we turn, not older with years, but newer every day. 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. it's strange that words are so inadequate. yet, like the asthmatic struggling for breath, so the lover must struggle for words. my understanding of truth can change from day to day, and my commitment must be to truth rather than to consistency. the feeling of sunday is the same everywhere: heavy, melancholy, standing still. like when they say, 'as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be; world without end.' if a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as michelangelo painted, or beethoven composed music, or shakespeare composed poetry. he should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well. the robbed that smiles, steals something from the thief. 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. 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. i try to draw the line but it ends up running down the middle of me most of the time. finish each day and be done with it. you have done what you could. some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense. the real voyage of discovery consists not of seeking new landscapes - but of having new eyes. we don't see things as they are - we see them as we are. adversity is like a strong wind. i don't mean just that it holds us back from places we might otherwise go. it also tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that afterward we see ourselves as we really are, and not merely as we might like to be. i know that a life without love is no life at all. the person who tries to live alone will not succeed as a human being. his heart withers if it does not answer another heart. his mind shrinks away if he hears only the echoes of his own thoughts and finds no other inspiration. thoreau once said most men lead lives of quiet desperation... don't be resigned to that. live life!.

Do you understand, / child, how the moon, the tide / is in our own image? one thing i've learned all these years is not to make love when you really don't feel it; there's probably nothing worse you can do to yourself than that. we can't all, and some of us don't. that's all there is to it. nothing revives the past so completely as a smell that was once associated with it..