Amy Winehouse // "I’m a very romantic person. I don’t mean romantic in a flowers and chocolate kind of way. It’s more like if it’s raining, I’ll go up to the window and press my nose against the glass and sigh at how beautiful it all looks."
Aldous Huxley // "The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal. Many of them are normal because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence, because their human voice has been silenced so early in their lives, that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does. They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. These millions of abnormally normal people, living without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted."
Ernest Hemingway // "Look at things and listen and feel."
Ethan Hawke // "Don't you find it odd...that when you're a kid, everyone, all the world, encourages you to follow your dreams. But when you're older, somehow they act offended if you even try."
Edvard Munch // "From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity."
Sophia Loren // "When I'm walking along in the street, I always feel that around the corner, there is something wonderful waiting for me. That's my attitude."
Haruki Murakami // "As I see it, you are living with something that you keep hidden deep inside. Something heavy. I felt it from the first time I met you. You have a strong gaze, as if you have made up your mind about something. To tell you the truth, I myself carry such things around inside. Heavy things. That is how I can see it in you."
Francis Bacon // "No artist knows in his own lifetime whether what he does will be the slightest good, because it takes at least seventy-five to a hundred years before the thing begins to sort itself out."
Henry Miller // "An age such as ours is the most difficult one of all for an artist. There is no place for him. At least, that is what one hears on all sides. Nevertheless, some few artists of our time have made a place for themselves. Picasso made a place for himself. Joyce made a place for himself. Matisse made a place for himself. Celine made a place for himself. Should I rattle off the whole list?... Those who are perpetually talking about the inability to communicate with the world, have they made every effort? Have they learned how to be as wise and cunning as the serpent, as well as strong and obstinate as a bull? Or are they braying like donkeys, whining about some ideal condition in the ever-receding future when every man will be recognized and rewarded for his labors? Do they really expect such a day to dawn, these simple souls? I feel that I have some right to speak about the difficulty of establishing communication with the world since my books are banned in the only countries where I can be read in my own tongue. I have enough faith in myself however to know that I eventually will make myself heard, if not understood. Everything I write is loaded with the dynamite which will one day destroy the barriers erected about me. If I fail it will be because I did not put enough dynamite into my words. And so, while I have the strength and the gusto I will load my words with dynamite... You want to communicate. All right, communicate! Use any and every means."
Merri Cyr (& Jeff Buckley) // "Jeff allowed me to photograph him in an uncensored way: while he was playing, being interviewed, at dinner, at rest...everything. He wanted people to see his authentic self as opposed to a rock icon. I photographed him when he was angry, tired, pissed off...most of the time people don’t allow you to see those aspects of themselves, especially when they are in the process of being mythologized. I think he liked how I saw him through the camera...which hopefully was with empathy. He was very beautiful, but I think Jeff’s beauty wasn’t about his body, but his ephemeral brilliance. He was very inspiring, as an artist you wanted to be as good as he was."
Maya Angelou // "At the end of the day people won't remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel."
Bernie Sanders // "I believe...we are in this together. These are not just words. The truth is on some level when you hurt, when your children hurt, I hurt. And when my kids hurt, you hurt. And it’s very easy to turn our backs on kids who are hungry or veterans who are sleeping out on the street and we can develop a psyche, a psychology which says, 'I don’t have to worry about them, all I’m going to worry about is myself, I need to make another five million dollars.' But I believe what human nature is about is that everybody impacts everybody else...in all kinds of ways that we can’t even understand. It’s beyond intellect. It’s a spiritual, emotional thing. So I believe that when we do the right thing, when we try to treat people with respect and dignity, when we say that that child who is hungry is my child, I think we are more human when we do that... That is my religion. That’s what I believe in."