Zadie Smith // "When I write I am trying to express my way of being in the world. This is primarily a process of elimination. Once you have removed all the dead language, the second-hand dogma, the truths that are not your own but other people’s, the mottos, the slogans, the out-and-out lies of your nation, the myths of your historical moment. Once you have removed all that warps experience into a shape you do not recognize and do not believe in, what you are left with is something approximating the truth of your own conception."
John Malkovich // "I've permitted myself to learn and to fail with some regularity."
Patti Smith (& Robert Mapplethorpe) // "He asked...'Did art get us?' The question for me wasn't if art got us. The question was, 'Do we regret that?' I know art got us, because if art gets you, you can never be normal. You can never enjoy. You can't go anywhere without trying to transform it, you know? You go to church to pray, and you start writing a story about being in a church praying. You're always observing what you do. I noticed that when I was young going to parties. I could never lose myself...because I was always observing...observing or creating a mental scenario."
Anthony Bourdain // "There is no lying in the kitchen. And no god there, either. He couldn’t help you anyway. You either can...or can’t...make an omelet. You either can...or can’t...chop an onion, shake a pan, keep up with the other cooks, replicate again and again, perfectly, the dishes that need to be done. No credential, no amount of bullshit, no well-formed sentences or pleas for mercy will change the basic facts. The kitchen is the last meritocracy...a world of absolutes; one knows without any ambiguity at the end of each day how one did. 'Good' and 'evil' are easily and instantly recognized for what they are. Good is a cook who shows up on time and does what he said yesterday he was going to do. Evil is a cook who’s full of shit and doesn’t or can’t do what he said he was going to do."
Karl Pilkington // "If I had to give up my mouth or my ears, I'd definitely get rid of my mouth. You learn nothing from your own talking. I know everything I'm going to say, I never surprise myself."
Marjory Stoneman Douglas // "Don’t think it is enough to...sit there like a lump. Be a nuisance where it counts... Do your part to inform and stimulate the public to join your action. Be depressed, discouraged and disappointed at failure and the disheartening effects of ignorance, greed, corruption and bad politics...but never give up."
Paul Newman // "I check my pulse and if I can find it, I know I've got a chance."
Noam Chomsky // "Optimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you believe that the future can be better, you are unlikely to step up and take responsibility for making it so. If you assume there's no hope, you guarantee that there will be no hope. If you assume that there is an instinct for freedom...there are opportunities to change things, there's a chance you may contribute to making a better world. The choice is yours."
Richard Feynman // "I have approximate answers, and possible beliefs, and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I'm not absolutely sure of anything."
Charles Bukowski // "Nobody can save you but yourself. You will be put again and again into nearly impossible situations. They will attempt again and again...to make you submit, quit and/or die quietly inside...and it will be easy enough to fail...but don't, don't, don't. Just watch them. Listen to them. Do you want to be like that? A faceless, mindless, heartless being? Do you want to experience death before death? Nobody can save you but yourself and you're worth saving. It's a war not easily won but if anything is worth winning then this is it. Think about it. Think about saving yourself."
Sade Adu // "The anxiety I feel when I'm late is nothing like the anxiety I feel when I'm on time."
Muhammad Ali // "I’m gonna show you how great I am."
