Famous Quotes Ipsum

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. do not follow where the path may lead. go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. 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. everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it. i could lay here and read all night. i am not able to fall asleep without reading. you have that time when your brain has nothing constructive to do so it rambles. i fool my brain out of that by making it read until it shuts off. i just think it's best to do something right up until you fall asleep. the writer of originality, unless dead, is always shocking, scandalous; novelty disturbs and repels. poets . . . create from the very depths of the collective unconscious, voicing aloud what others only dream. words do not express thoughts very well. they always become a little different immediately after they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish. i am woman, hear me roar! if the truth were to be known, everyone would be wearing a scarlet letter of one form or another. sex. in america it's an obsession; in other parts of the world, a fact. why? wherefore? inasmuch as which? 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. what is a hero? primarily one who has conquered his fears. 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. i'll pretend this is real / 'cause this is what i like best 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. the form of government most suitable to the artist is no government at all. listening four or five times a day to newscasters and commentators, reading the morning papers and all the weeklies and monthlies - nowadays this is described as 'taking an interest in politics'. st. john of the cross would have called it indulgence in idle curiosity and the cultivation of disquietude for disquietude's sake. we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. every man's memory is his private literature. loss is nothing else but change, and change is nature's delight. i wish you could invent some means to make me at all happy without you. every hour i am more and more concentrated in you; every thing else tastes like chaff in my mouth. 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. are there not chapters in everybody's life that seem to be nothing, and yet affect all the rest of history? it occurred to him that, for the first time since his birth, life had said yes to archie jones. not simply an 'ok' or 'you-might-as-well-carry-on-since-you've-started', but a resounding affirmative. it is curious how silly, trivial things, sometimes for no apparent reason, become significant. at first you laugh at these things, you think they are of no importance, you go on and you feel that you haven't got the strength to stop yourself... and so it seems to me that if i die, i shall take part in life one way or another. live simply, but be complicated..

Nothing strengthens the judgement and quickens the conscience like individual responsibility. it took me too long to realize / that i don't take good pictures / 'cause i have the kind of beauty / that moves to read a writer, for me, is not merely to get an idea of what he says, but to go off with him and travel in his company. it's strange that words are so inadequate. yet, like the asthmatic struggling for breath, so the lover must struggle for words. 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.' it's amazing the clarity that comes with psychotic jealousy. we don't see things as they are - we see them as we are. perfection is achieved not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. footfalls echo in the memory / down the passage we did not take / towards the door we never opened / into the rose garden it is beautiful that our lives coincided for so long. i took us for better and i took us for worse / don't you ever forget it / now the steel bars between me and a promise / suddenly bend with ease / the closer i'm bound in love to you / the closer i am to free 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. nothing strengthens the judgement and quickens the conscience like individual responsibility. he who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying. curiosity is braver than rage. exploration is a nobler calling than combat. the unknown beckons to us, singing its siren song and making our hearts pound with fear and desire. advice is what we ask for when we know the answer but wish we didn't. 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. sit down before fact like a little child, and be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss nature leads, or you shall learn nothing. 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. who shall measure the heat and violence of the poet's heart when caught tangled in a woman's body? it takes courage to grow up and turn out to be who you really are. the cure for everything is salt water: sweat, tears, or the sea. true religion is real living; living with all one's soul, with all one's goodness and righteousness. my religion is very simple. my religion is kindness. perfection is terrible; it cannot have children. when you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everybody will respect you. the street corner where always, for years, in passing you felt, unexplained, a pang of despair, like nausea, till one night, late, late, on that spot you were struck, struck still, and again felt how her head had thrust to your shoulder. everything possible to be believed is an image of truth. goodbyes always make my throat hurt . . . i need more hellos. the human soul is very much older than the human mind. both my wife and daughter think i'm this gigantic loser and they're right.