Chris Hadfield // "I would love the opportunity to take everybody on 100 orbits of the world with me. To sit by the window of the Space Station...and just take the time to watch the world. It is immensely, startlingly beautiful. Each time you come around the world, the world has changed – the weather patterns have changed, the seasons have changed...and you develop an increasing understanding and awareness of the world, like watching something grow and flower. And, inevitably, somewhere along the way you start to lose your sense...of 'us' and 'them.' You lose that sense that the little square that you walk around in is the only one that matters. The more people who could see the immensity of it, the beauty of it, the patience of it, the age of it, the toughness of the world and the precious unique beauty of it...the better we would all be."
Pina Bausch // "Your fragility is also your strength."
Jorge Luis Borges // "Of all man’s instruments, the most wondrous...is the book. The other instruments are extensions of his body. The microscope, the telescope, are extensions of his sight; the telephone is the extension of his voice; then we have the plow and the sword, extensions of the arm. But the book is something else altogether: the book is an extension of memory and imagination."
Elsie de Wolfe // "I am going to make everything around me beautiful. That will be my life."
James Baldwin // "Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one an identity, the end of safety. And at such a moment, unable to see and not daring to imagine what the future will now bring forth, one clings to what one knew, or dreamed that one possessed. Yet, it is only when a man is able, without bitterness or self-pity, to surrender a dream he has long cherished or a privilege he has long possessed...that he is set free...for higher dreams, for greater privileges."
Patti Smith // "I tell my kids...think of yourself like a captain, and you've got this little boat. And sometimes the weather's good, and you're just sailing, and sometimes big storms hit, and you know, you're in a stormy sea, but just ride it out, ride it out. Because it's good to be alive."
Lucia Berlin // "What if our bodies were transparent, like a washing machine window? How wondrous to watch ourselves. Joggers would jog even harder, blood pumping away. Lovers would love more...Diets would improve, kiwi fruit and strawberries."
J.K. Rowling // "Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic. Capable of both inflicting injury, and remedying it."
Martin Luther King Jr. // "May I stress the need for courageous, intelligent, and dedicated leadership... Leaders of sound integrity. Leaders not in love with publicity, but in love with justice. Leaders not in love with money, but in love with humanity. Leaders who can subject their particular egos to the greatness of the cause... A time like this demands great souls with pure hearts and ready hands... Leaders who will not lie. Leaders who can stand before the demagogue and damn his treacherous flatteries without winking... This is one of the great needs of the hour."
Frank Lloyd Wright // "We are no longer truly simple. We no longer live in simple terms or places. Life is a more complex struggle now. It is now valiant to be simple; a courageous thing to even want to be simple. It is a spiritual thing to comprehend what simplicity means."
Jack Nicholson // "I don't want to be a product of my environment; I want my environment to be a product of me."
George Bernard Shaw // "I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want...and if they can't find them...make them."
