Jacques Brel // "I wish you endless dreams and the furious desire to realize some of them. I wish you to love what must be loved, and to forget what must be forgotten. I wish you passions. I wish you silences. I wish you birdsongs as you wake up and children’s laughter. I wish you to respect the differences of others, because the worth and virtues of each person often remain to be discovered. I wish you to resist the stagnation, the indifference, and the negative values of our time. I wish you at last to never to give up the search, for adventure, life, love. For life is a wonderful adventure and no reasonable person should give it up without a tough fight. I wish you above all to be yourself, proud of being and happy, for happiness is our true destiny."
Martha Gellhorn (& Ernest Hemingway) // "I see perfection as a complete aliveness; being alert and eager, wanting all things to mean growth and intensity."
Leonard Cohen // "May you be surrounded by friends and family, and if this is not your lot, may the blessings find you in your solitude."
Sylvia Plath // "I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery…air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, 'This is what it is to be happy.'"
Anais Nin // "I have a kind of courage you do not understand. I am far from blind, far from indifferent, but I will not indulge in impotent, passive despair. I will not add to the despair of the world. I am working on counterpoisons… I create a space in which people can breathe, restore their faith and strength to live."
Jack Kerouac // "Don’t use the phone. People are never ready to answer it. Use poetry."
Albert Camus // "Our world without love is a dead world and there inevitably comes a time when, wary of prisons, work and duty…all one longs for is the face of another, for the warmth and wonder of a loving heart."
Audrey Hepburn // "I believe, every day, you should have at least one exquisite moment."
Agnes Varda // "I need images…I need representation which deals in means other than reality. We have to use reality but get out of it. That’s what I try to do all the time."
Sophie Scholl // "It’s the reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you’ll keep it under control. If you don’t make any noise, the bogeyman won’t find you. But it’s all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe. Safe?! From what? Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does. I choose my own way to burn."
Nikki Giovanni // "I hope I die warmed by the life that I tried to live."
Ernest Hemingway // "Today is only one day in all the days that will ever be. But what will happen in all the other days that ever come can depend on what you do today. It’s been that way all this year. It’s been that way so many times."
