James Baldwin // "Perhaps the primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid: the state of being alone... Most of us are not compelled to linger with the knowledge of our aloneness, for it is a knowledge that can paralyze all action in this world. There are, forever, swamps to be drained, cities to be created, mines to be exploited, children to be fed. None of these things can be done alone. But the conquest of the physical world is not man’s only duty. He is also enjoined to conquer the great wilderness of himself. The precise role of the artist...is to illuminate that darkness, blaze roads through that vast forest, so that we will not, in all our doing, lose sight of its purpose, which is, after all, to make the world a more human dwelling place."
Romy Schneider // "You must not quote to me what I once said. I am wiser now."
Marlon Brando // "Never let the audience know how it’s going to come out. Get them on your time. And when that time comes and everything is right, you just let it fly. Hit them. Knock them over with an attitude, with a word, with a look. Be surprising. Figure out a way to do it like it has never been done before. You want to stop that movement from the popcorn to the mouth. Get people to stop chewing. The truth will do that. Damn damn damn damn, when it’s right, it’s right. You can feel it in your bones. Then you feel whole and you feel good."
Arthur Miller // "One can’t forever stand on the shore; at some point, even filled with indecision, skepticism, reservation and doubt, you either jump in or concede that life is forever elsewhere."
Claude Monet // "I want the unobtainable. Other artists paint a bridge, a house, a boat, and that's the end. They are finished. I want to paint the air which surrounds the bridge, the house, the boat, the beauty of the air in which these objects are located, and that is nothing short of impossible."
Haruki Murakami // "We have to dust things off every once in awhile, let in fresh air, change the water in the flower vases."
Nina Simone // "What amazed me was the order of things...the fact that we wear clothes, that an office has to look a certain way, the whole bit. It’s amazing how accustomed we have become to a certain order. And you become more aware of that order when you see something change it. Everybody turns around and stares. But why, really? Rules, orders. We have ordered things so long in a certain way, we are numb. Nobody dares question it. This is what is wrong..."
Johnny Cash // "To love who you are and what you do, and to have faith in your ability to do it. You’ve got to know your limitations. I don’t know what your limitations are. I found out what mine were...I found out there weren’t too many limitations, if I did it my way."
Carl Jung // "At present we educate people only up to the point where they can earn a living and marry; then education ceases altogether, as though a complete mental outfit has been acquired. The solution of all the remaining complicated problems of life is left to the discretion, and ignorance, of the individual. Innumerable ill-advised and unhappy marriages, innumerable professional disappointments, are due solely to this lack of adult education. Vast numbers of men and women thus spend their entire lives in complete ignorance of the most important things...The adult is educable, and can respond gratefully to the art of individual education..."
Charles Bukowski // "Style is the answer to everything. A fresh way to approach a dull or dangerous thing. To do a dull thing with style is preferable to doing a dangerous thing without it. To do a dangerous thing with style is what I call art... Boxing can be art. Loving can be art. Opening a can of sardines can be an art... Not many have style. Not many can keep style... Style is the difference, a way of doing, a way of being done."
Clarice Lispector // "It's inside myself that I must create someone who will understand."
Alan Rickman // "It’s a human need to be told stories. The more we’re governed by idiots and have no control over our destinies, the more we need to tell stories to each other about who we are, why we are, where we come from, and what might be possible."
