Jean-Michel Basquiat // "I don’t know how to describe my work, because it's not always the same thing. It's like asking somebody...asking Miles Davis, 'How does your horn sound?' I don't think he could really tell you why he played, you know, why he plays this at this point in the music. You know, you're just, you're sort of on automatic...most of the time."
Philippe Petit // "You must not fall. When you lose your balance...you must not force yourself to stay steady. You must move forward."
Maya Angelou // "The white men and women could look at you with such loathing that you really wish...that you could dry up, in the moment, just shrivel up like that. And instead of that I’d put my head up and walk through, grit my teeth, survive it. But my god, what scars does that leave on somebody? I don’t even dare examine it myself. And when I reach for the pen...to write, I have to scrape it across those scars, to sharpen that point. And yet, I still have never, yet, really gone down to look at those scars. I just think I might dissolve."
Toni Morrison // "And fantasy it was, for we were not strong, only aggressive; we were not free, merely licensed; we were not compassionate, we were polite; not good, but well behaved. We courted death in order to call ourselves brave, and hid like thieves from life. We substituted good grammar for intellect; we switched habits to simulate maturity; we rearranged lies and called it truth."
Hunter S. Thompson // "On some nights I still believe that a car with the gas needle on empty can run about fifty more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio."
Jeanne Moreau // "I can't belong to groups. I've tried. I behave normally, but people don't look at me normally...they expect everyone to be like them."
River Phoenix // "It's not about a career. It's about believing in something, it's about prosperity. And it's about caring and empathizing and wanting to create the best, the most true to life, the most real."
Thelonious Monk // "A genius is the one most like himself."
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."
Henry Miller (& Anais Nin) // "Death in life...that’s the only death. That’s the real death. Not this death when you depart the body, but being dead while you’re alive. That’s real death, I think."
Helena Bonham Carter // "I think everything in life is art. What you do. How you dress. The way you love someone, and how you talk. Your smile and your personality. What you believe in, and all your dreams. The way you drink your tea. How you decorate your home. Or party. Your grocery list. The food you make. How your writing looks. And the way you feel. Life is art."
Bruce Lee // "If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them."