Charles Bukowski // "I will remember your small room, the feel of you, the light in the window, your records, your books, our morning coffee, our noons, our nights, our bodies spilled together, sleeping, the tiny flowing currents, immediate and forever. Your leg, my leg, your arm, my arm, your smile and the warmth of you who made me laugh again."
Bill Murray // "I think if you can take care of yourself, and then maybe try to take care of someone else, that's sort of how you're supposed to live."
Duane Michals // "You're either defined by the medium or you redefine the medium in terms of your needs."
Charles Bukowski // "Your life is your life. Don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission. Be on the watch. There are ways out. There is light somewhere. It may not be much light but it beats the darkness. Be on the watch. The gods will offer you chances. Know them. Take them. You can’t beat death but you can beat death in life, sometimes. And the more often you learn to do it, the more light there will be. Your life is your life. Know it while you have it. You are marvelous. The gods wait to delight in you."
Bob Dylan // "I was born very far from where I’m supposed to be, and so, I’m on my way home, you know?"
Charles Eames // "The most important thing is that you love what you are doing, and the second is that you are not afraid of where your next idea will lead."
Nina Simone // "I have to constantly re-identify myself to myself, reactivate my own standards, my own convictions about what I’m doing and why."
Franz Kafka // "I never wish to be easily defined. I’d rather float over other people’s minds as something strictly fluid and non-perceivable; more like a transparent, paradoxically iridescent creature rather than an actual person."
Hunter S. Thompson // "Every man is the sum total of his reactions to experience. As your experiences differ and multiply, you become a different man, and hence your perspective changes. This goes on and on... So it would seem foolish, would it not, to adjust our lives to the demands of a goal we see from a different angle every day? How could we ever hope to accomplish anything... The answer, then, must not deal with goals at all... We do not strive to be firemen, we do not strive to be bankers, nor policemen, nor doctors. WE STRIVE TO BE OURSELVES. But don’t misunderstand me. I don’t mean that we can’t BE firemen, bankers, or doctors...but that we must make the goal conform to the individual, rather than make the individual conform to the goal... Beware of looking for goals: look for a way of life. Decide how you want to live and then see what you can do to make a living WITHIN that way of life."
Lightnin' Hopkins // "People have learned how to strum a guitar, but they don't have the soul. They don't feel it from the heart. It hurts me. I'm killin' myself to tell them how it is."
William S. Burroughs // "Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax..."
Patti Smith (& Robert Mapplethorpe) // "It's a dark period now... 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."