Famous Quotes Ipsum

Talking with you is sort of the conversational equivalent of an out of body experience. it seems that whatever goes into my mouth makes me fat, just as whatever comes out of it embarrasses me. truth is a deep kindness that teaches us to be content in our everyday life and share with the people the same happiness. sure, the world is full of trouble. but as long as we have people undoing trouble, we have a pretty good world. in our minds we can understand the highest god, but so long as we are in human bodies living in this rich and varied world, we need images that we can see and touch and love. and each one of them shows us a part of that supreme power, and all the parts together give us a glimpse of the whole. so the people who insist there is only one god are right, and so are those who honor the many, but they are right in different ways. i'll pretend this is real / 'cause this is what i like best all humanity is passion; without passion, religion, history, novels, art would be ineffectual. one of the earliest lessons i learned as a child was that if you looked away from something, it might not be there when you looked back. the human soul is very much older than the human mind..

Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. every child is an artist. the challenge is to remain an artist once he grows up. tolerating blind obedience in the name of patriotism or religion ultimately takes our lives. 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. advice is what we ask for when we know the answer but wish we didn't. we do not write in order to be understood, we write in order to understand. power consists.... in deciding which stories will be told. lolita is famous, not i. i am an obscure, doubly obscure, novelist with an unpronounceable last name. do not the most moving moments of our lives find us all without words? the only thing worth saying is what you really feel. 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. every now and then go away, even briefly, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer; since to remain constantly at work will cause you to lose power. the robbed that smiles, steals something from the thief. i must obey the inscrutable exhortations of my soul. from my rotting body, flowers shall grow and i am in them and that is eternity. i look upon death to be as necessary to the constitution as sleep. we shall rise again refreshed in the morning. 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. great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion. we can't all, and some of us don't. that's all there is to it. it's so sweet, i feel like my teeth are rotting when i listen to the radio. how many joys are crushed under foot because people look up at the sky and disregard what is at their feet? perfection is achieved not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. if i had a formula for bypassing trouble, i wouldn't pass it around. wouldn't be doing anybody a favor. trouble creates a capacity to handle it. i don't say embrace trouble. that's as bad as treating it as an enemy. but i do say, meet it as a friend, for you'll see a lot of it and had better be on speaking terms with it. no pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to uncharted land or opened a new doorway for the human spirit. he felt now that he was not simply close to her, but that he did not now where he ended and she began. 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 human soul is very much older than the human mind. hope is a dangerous thing. drive a man insane..

It's kind of fun to do the impossible. the blood jet is poetry, there is no stopping it. words do not express thoughts very well. they always become a little different immediately after they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish. a single sun shines here and in the land where i was born, though we call it by different names. in the realm of idea, the great principles behind the forms that we see are the same. with our thoughts, we make the world. sleeping is curiously addictive. you are part of the world, but not in it, and somehow that just seems right. it seems enough. call it fate, call it luck, call it karma. i believe everything happens for a reason. i've learned that fate only takes you so far. after that, it's up to you to make it happen. 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. 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. the soul is an emanation of the divinity, a part of the soul of the world, a ray from the source of light. it comes from without into the human body, as into a temporary abode, it goes out of it anew; it wanders in ethereal regions, it returns to visit.... it passes into other habitations, for the soul is immortal. when i have a terrible need of - shall i say the word? - religion, then i go out and paint the stars. 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 a daughter of hope and fear, explaining to ignorance the nature of the unknowable. 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. never judge a book by its movie. beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. the least we can do is try to be there. footfalls echo in the memory / down the passage we did not take / towards the door we never opened / into the rose garden your mind might make a connection that is useful. but true is another matter. true implies that you have found a connection that exists independent of your apprehension of it, that would exist whether you noticed it or not. and i must say that i have never seen such a connection in my life. there are times when i suspect that there are no such connections, that all links, bonds, ties, and similarities are creatures of thought and have no substance. the fact is, i was a trifle beside myself; or rather out of myself, as the french would say: i was conscious that at moment's mutiny had already rendered me liable to strange penalties and, like any other rebel slave, i felt resolved, in my desperation, to go to all lengths. ...love is not love / which alters when it alteration finds, / or bends with the remover to remove: / o no! it is an ever-fixed mark / that looks on tempests and is never shaken... 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 glory in this world of men and women, torn with troubles, yet living on to love and laugh through it all. there i am in younger days, stargazing / painting picture perfect maps / of how my life and love would be / not counting the unmarked paths / of misdirection / my compass, faith in love's perfection / i missed ten million miles of road / i should have seen.