Haruki Murakami // "This is one more piece of advice I have for you: don't get impatient. Even if things are so tangled up you can't do anything, don't get desperate or blow a fuse and start yanking on one particular thread before it's ready to come undone. You have to realize it's going to be a long process and that you'll work on things slowly, one at a time."
Jean-Paul Sartre // "In a word, man must create his own essence: it is in throwing himself into the world, suffering there, struggling there, that he gradually defines himself."
Alexei Navalny // "We…Russia…want to be a nation of peace. Alas, few people would call us that now. But let's at least not become a nation of frightened silent people. Of cowards who pretend not to notice the aggressive war against Ukraine unleashed by our obviously insane czar. I cannot, do not want and will not remain silent watching how pseudo-historical nonsense about the events of 100 years ago has become an excuse for Russians to kill Ukrainians, and for Ukrainians to kill Russians while defending themselves. It's the third decade of the 21st century, and we are watching news about people burning down in tanks and bombed houses. We are watching real threats to start a nuclear war on our TVs. I am from the USSR myself. I was born there. And the main phrase from there…from my childhood…was 'fight for peace.' I call on everyone to take to the streets and fight for peace. Putin is not Russia. And if there is anything in Russia right now that you can be most proud of, it is those 6,824 people who were detained because…without any call…they took to the streets with placards saying 'No War.' They say that someone who cannot attend a rally and does not risk being arrested for it cannot call for it. I'm already in prison, so I think I can. We cannot wait any longer. Wherever you are, in Russia, Belarus or on the other side of the planet, go to the main square of your city every weekday and at 2 pm on weekends and holidays. If you are abroad, come to the Russian embassy. If you can organise a demonstration, do so on the weekend. Yes, maybe only a few people will take to the streets on the first day. And in the second…even less. But we must, gritting our teeth and overcoming fear, come out and demand an end to the war. Each arrested person must be replaced by two newcomers. If in order to stop the war we have to fill prisons and paddy wagons with ourselves, we will fill prisons and paddy wagons with ourselves. Everything has a price, and now, in the spring of 2022, we must pay this price. There's no one to do it for us. Let's not 'be against the war.' Let's fight against the war."
Carl Jung // "The world hangs on a thin thread, and that is the psyche of man."
David Lynch // "We are, as human beings, charged as to how we treat our fellow man. And there is a law of nature, a hard and fast law…there’s no loopholes, there’s no escaping it. And this law is: 'What you sow, you shall reap.' And right now…you are sowing death and destruction… We are a world family, there is no room for this kind of absurdity anymore."
George Orwell // "A not-too-distant explosion shakes the house, the windows rattle in their sockets… Each time this happens I find myself thinking, 'Is it possible that human beings can continue with this lunacy very much longer?' You know the answer, of course."
Leonard Cohen // "Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash."
Tilda Swinton // "I am a great friend of chaos. It’s all we have. I mean, this whole concept of being able to manage life...life is risk, life is chance, life is being open to chance. The best things in my life, and probably in anybody’s life, come out of being open to being blown off course."
Philip Guston // "When you start working, everybody is in your studio…the past, your friends, enemies…and above all, your own ideas all are there. But as you continue…they start leaving, one by one, and you are left completely alone. Then, if you’re lucky, even you leave."
Marcel Marceau // "I don't want our youth to become anti-romantic. We have to make room for the soul."
Ingmar Bergman // "I understand, all right. The hopeless dream of being...not seeming, but being. Conscious at every moment. Vigilant. At the same time, the chasm between what you are to others and to yourself. The feeling of vertigo and the constant desire to, at last, be exposed...to be seen through, cut down, perhaps even annihilated. Every tone of voice is a lie, every gesture a falsehood, every smile a grimace. Commit suicide? No, that’s vulgar. You don’t do that. But you can be immobile. You can fall silent. Then, at least, you don’t lie. You can close yourself in, shut yourself off. Then you don’t have to play roles, show any faces, or make false gestures. Or so you thought. But reality is bloody-minded. Your hiding place isn’t watertight. Life seeps in everything. You’re forced to react. No one asks if it’s real or unreal, if you’re true or false. Such things matter only in the theatre, and hardly there either. I understand your keeping silent, your immobility. That you’ve placed this lack of will into a fantastic system. I understand. I admire you. You should go on with this until it’s played out, until it’s no longer interesting. Then you can leave it, just as you’ve left your other parts one by one."
David Lynch // "The idea is the whole thing. If you stay true to the idea, it tells you everything you need to know, really. You just keep working to make it look like that idea looked, feel like it felt, sound like it sounded, and be the way it was. And it’s weird, because when you veer off, you sort of know it. You know when you’re doing something that is not correct because it feels incorrect. It says, 'No, no; this isn’t like the idea said it was.' And when you’re getting into it the correct way, it feels correct. It’s an intuition: You feel-think your way through. You start one place, and as you go, it gets more and more finely tuned. But all along it’s the idea talking. At some point, it feels correct to you. And you hope that it feels somewhat correct to others."