Simone Weil // "Everybody knows that really intimate conversation is only possible between two or three. As soon as there are six or seven, collective language begins to dominate."
Max Ernst // "When the artist finds himself he is lost. The fact that he has succeeded in never finding himself is...his only lasting achievement."
Francoise Sagan // "I always wanted to ask people: 'Are you in love? What are you reading?'"
James Baldwin // "It is rare indeed that people give. Most people guard and keep; they suppose that it is they themselves and what they identify with themselves that they are guarding and keeping, whereas what they are actually guarding and keeping is their system of reality and what they assume themselves to be."
Claude Monet // "I'm continuing to work hard, not without periods of discouragement, but my strength comes back again."
Roald Dahl // "If you are interested in something, no matter what it is, go at it full speed ahead. Embrace it with both arms, hug it, love it and above all become passionate about it. Lukewarm is no good. Hot is no good either. White hot and passionate is the only thing to be."
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."
Jane Goodall // "The beauty was always there, but moments of true awareness were rare."
Miles Davis // "Man, sometimes it takes you a long time to sound like yourself."
David Thewlis // "Do you think that the amoeba ever dreamed that it would evolve into the frog? Of course it didn't. And when that first frog shimmied out of the water and employed its vocal chords in order to attract a mate or to retard a predator, do you think that that frog ever imagined that that incipient croak would evolve into all the languages of the world, into all the literature of the world? Of course it fucking didn't. And just as that froggy could never possibly have conceived of Shakespeare, so we can never possibly imagine our destiny."
Andrei Tarkovsky // "The director's task is to recreate life: its movement, its contradictions, its dynamic and conflicts. It is his duty to reveal every iota of the truth he has seen...even if not everyone finds that truth acceptable... All debate about what may or may not be shown can only be a pedestrian and immoral attempt to distort the truth. Dostoyevsky said: 'They always say that art has to reflect life and all that. But it's nonsense: the writer, the poet himself creates life such as it has never quite been before him.' The artist's inspiration comes into being somewhere in the deepest recesses of his 'I'. It cannot be dictated by external, 'business' considerations. It is bound to be related to his psyche and his conscience; it springs from the totality of his world-view. If it is anything less, then it is doomed from the outset to be artistically void and sterile. It is perfectly possible to be a professional director or a professional writer and not to be an artist: merely a sort of executor of other people's ideas."
David Lynch // "Just slow things down and it becomes more beautiful."