Tennessee Williams // "There is a time for departure even when there’s no certain place to go."
Ricardo Bofill // "The ideal city is impossible to create, just as the ideal island is impossible to build. The ideal is forever in flux; it must always be evolving. From there, I thought, 'Since total utopia is not possible, since total change leads to disaster, we’re going to divvy up utopia by theme and ensure that every architectural exercise is the development of one of those themes.' So, I changed strategies and tried to focus on concrete subjects to conduct partial experiments. I think each of the multiple projects I’ve done constitutes a part of a total city that has not been…and can never be…built. Each of my projects is a part of a possible city. These parts are the partial realization of what is possible…but not the manifestation of an overall utopia, as such utopias are always doomed to disaster and failure. This is the strategy that has stimulated me and enabled me to preserve an ambition…but with greater humility. I’ve abandoned my former conception of things, where I wanted to conceive a whole. A totality is impossible to conceive, so you instead conceive a part. Hence…my projects are the realization of utopia’s impossibility, of partial utopias, attempts to avert their inevitable failure, but with an inner logic."
Maya Angelou // "Because of the routines we follow, we often forget that life is an ongoing adventure...and the sooner we realize that, the quicker we will be able to treat life as art: to bring all our energies to each encounter, to remain flexible enough to notice and admit when what we expected to happen did not happen. We need to remember that we are created creative and can invent new scenarios as frequently as they are needed."
James Baldwin // "The place in which I'll fit will not exist until I make it."
David Lynch // "You don't know yourself by talking to yourself or looking in the mirror. You know yourself by diving in and experiencing the self."
Björk // "I realized I could have an easy life...just have a glass of Cognac and good books and two jobs and do my songs in the evening, but I would be such a consumer, taking it all in and not giving anything back. I thought: Ok...if I don’t go on a mission now and make some sacrifices, as these people did, I will never forgive myself."
Charles Bukowski // "Those faces you see every day on the streets were not created entirely without hope: be kind to them."
David Bowie // "Something that I’ve had a real push-pull relationship all my life is the idea of being trapped and pinned down and categorized. I always felt it would be like prison to me…if I got to, 'Oh, he’s that.' It would sort of rip my guts out as a writer…because my writing is based on the idea of transience. My writing is a very clear understanding that nothing in this world is a real reality. It’s not something you can hold on to. It can be something you can enjoy briefly, tentatively for the moment that it’s there…love or a sunset or whatever…but like a sunset…it’s a transitory thing. And I didn’t want to get locked into being this one thing… Once I’ve done something and said it the way I felt it should be said, drop it and move on."
Sidney Poitier // "While collectively you can change things, you can do that only if you firmly believe that you, as an individual can make a difference… I am not suggesting that you devote your life to being a missionary. You are entitled to your share of love and joy and leisure and pure happiness. But within the warm periphery of your life, there should be room for passionate involvement. As the Italian poet Antonio Porchia put it: 'In a full heart there is room for everything, and in an empty heart there is room for nothing.'"
Hayao Miyazaki // "There are so many things we can’t do anything about if we think about generalities. Things won’t go well because there is a huge gap between the generalities and the particulars. If we see generalities from the top of a mountain or from a plane, we feel it’s hopeless, but if we go down, there is a nice road running about fifty meters, we feel this is a nice road, and if the weather is fine and shining, we feel we can go on… Since the people in the community are cleaning up the river in my neighborhood, I join them when I have the time. A human can often be satisfied with the particulars. That’s what I like best these days."
Jonas Mekas // "I have no idea what winds are driving me and where. But I chose this way, this way without directions. I chose it myself… So let me continue. I don’t want to look back. Not yet. Ahead, ahead…I am pushing."
Jean-Luc Godard // "He who jumps into the void owes no explanation to those who stand and watch."