NITCH

Photo of James Baldwin

James Baldwin // "Though we do not wholly believe it yet, the interior life is a real life, and the intangible dreams of people have a tangible effect on the world."

Photo of Claude Monet

Claude Monet // "Every day I discover more and more beautiful things. It’s enough to drive one mad. I have such a desire to do everything, my head is bursting with it."

Photo of Anais Nin

Anais Nin // "As I passed I saw a cafe, a cafe on the street, with an open door, and one small round table outside, just big enough for two persons, two glasses of wine, two small iron chairs, a diminutive cafe…shabby, with a faded sign, a dull window, lopsided walls, uneven roof. The smallness of it, the intimacy of it, the humanity of its proportion… A human being feels one can sit in such a cafe even if one’s hair is not perfectly in place and one’s shoes are not shined... One could sit there and feel unique, feel in tune with the world, or out of tune, feel human and open to human emotion... One could sit there if one felt the world too big and too barbaric, and feel once more in a human setting, a proper setting for a human being… Why did I feel warmed by imperfections, discomfort, and patina? Because intense living leaves scars…inner scars, softened, human wear and tear."

Photo of Charles Bukowski

Charles Bukowski // "And remember this: the page you are looking at now, I once typed the words with care with you in mind under a yellow light with the radio on."

Photo of Hayao Miyazaki

Hayao Miyazaki // "We have a word for that in Japanese. It’s called ma. Emptiness. It’s there intentionally. (claps hands) The time in between my clapping is ma. If you just have non-stop action with no breathing space at all, it’s just busyness. But if you take a moment, then the tension building…can grow into a wider dimension. If you just have constant tension all the time you just get numb… What really matters is the underlying emotions…that you never let go of those."

Photo of Paul Bowles

Paul Bowles // "Because we don’t know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that’s so deeply a part of your being that you can’t even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more. Perhaps not even. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless."

Photo of Clarice Lispector

Clarice Lispector // "It’s inside myself that I must create someone who will understand."

Photo of Forough Farrokhzad

Forough Farrokhzad // "I want to make a hole in everything and penetrate it deep. I want to reach the heart of the earth. My love lies in there, a place where seedlings turn green and roots meet one another and creation continues even in disintegration. I think it has always been this way…in birth and then in death. I think my body is a temporary form. I want to reach its essence."

Photo of Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway // "When people talk, listen completely. Don’t be thinking what you’re going to say. Most people never listen. Nor do they observe. You should be able to go into a room and when you come out, know everything that you saw there and not only that. If that room gave you any feeling you should know exactly what it was that gave you that feeling. Try that for practice."

Photo of Jane Goodall

Jane Goodall // "I hope people take away the fact that it is possible to have a different sort of life."

Photo of Janis Joplin

Janis Joplin // "To be true to myself, to be the person that was on the inside of me, and not play games. That’s what I’m trying to do mostly in the whole world, is to not bullshit myself and not bullshit anybody else."

Photo of Charlie Chaplin

Charlie Chaplin // "There’s something just as inevitable as death. And that’s life. Think of the power of the universe…turning the Earth, growing trees. That’s the same power within you...if you’ll only have the courage and the will to use it."