Patti Smith (& Robert Mapplethorpe) // "It's a dark period now because everyone is beguiled by fame... I think that true artists just have to keep doing their work, keep struggling, and keep hold of their vision. Because being a true artist is its own reward. If that's what you are, then you're always that. You could be locked away in a prison with no way at all to communicate what's in there, but you're still an artist. The imagination and the ability to transform is what makes one an artist. So young artists who feel overwhelmed by everything have to almost downscale. They have to go all the way to this kernel and believe in themselves, and that's what Robert gave me. He believed in that kernel I had, you know, with absolute unconditional belief. And if you believe it, you'll have that your whole life, through the worst times."
Ernest Hemingway // "I’m trying in all my stories to get the feeling of the actual life across...not to just depict life, or criticize it, but to actually make it alive. So that when you have read something by me you actually experience the thing. You can’t do this without putting in the bad and the ugly as well as what is beautiful. Because if it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it. Things aren’t that way."
Henry Rollins // "If you hate your parents, the man or the establishment, don't show them up by getting wasted and wrapping your car around a tree. If you really want to rebel against them, out-learn them, outlive them, and know more than they do."
Diane Arbus // "I work from awkwardness. By that I mean I don't like to arrange things. If I stand in front of something, instead of arranging it, I arrange myself."
Bob Marley // "My home is in my head."
George Bernard Shaw // "There is the eternal war between those who are in the world for what they can get out of it...and those who are in the world to make it a better place for everybody to live in."
Glen Hansard // "If you’re feeling it, then go for it all the way. If you’re not feeling it, then give it what you can. I think the only thing that’s required of you is to be present, and sometimes that means that you might be a bit angry, or it might be a bit intense. And other times, it might be really mellow. Sometimes it’s hard to know what exactly is required of you, so you have to just go with what you’re feeling. And that’s something I’m kind of learning more and more."
Henri Matisse // "The essential thing is to work in a state of mind that approaches prayer."
Jack Kerouac // "I want to fish as deep down as possible into my own subconscious in the belief that, once that far down, everyone will understand because they are the same that far down."
Meryl Streep // "Put blinders on to the things that conspire to hold you back, especially the ones in your own head."
Anthony Bourdain // "It’s an irritating reality that many places and events defy description...seem to demand silence, like a love affair you can never talk about. For a while after, you fumble for words, trying vainly to assemble a private narrative, an explanation, a comfortable way to frame where you’ve been and what’s happened. In the end, you’re just happy you were there...with your eyes open...and lived to see it."
Jean Cocteau // "If a poet has a dream, it is not of becoming famous, but of being believed."
