William S. Burroughs // "If, after spending time with a person, you feel as though you've lost a quart of plasma, avoid that person in the future."
Tom Waits // "My kids are starting to notice I'm a little different from the other dads. 'Why don't you have a straight job like everyone else?' they asked me the other day. I told them this story: In the forest, there was a crooked tree and a straight tree. Every day, the straight tree would say to the crooked tree, 'Look at me...I'm tall, and I'm straight, and I'm handsome. Look at you...you're all crooked and bent over. No one wants to look at you.' And they grew up in that forest together. And then one day the loggers came, and they saw the crooked tree and the straight tree, and they said, 'Just cut the straight trees and leave the rest.' So the loggers turned all the straight trees into lumber and toothpicks and paper. And the crooked tree is still there, growing stronger and stranger every day."
Albert Camus // "My dear, in the midst of hate, I found there was, within me, an invincible love... In the midst of chaos, I found there was, within me, an invincible calm. I realized, through it all, that…in the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger...something better, pushing right back."
Kurt Vonnegut // "I've often thought there ought to be a manual to hand to little kids, telling them what kind of planet they're on, why they don't fall off it, how much time they've probably got here... I didn't learn until I was in college about all the other cultures, and I should have learned that in the first grade. A first grader should understand that his or her culture isn't a rational invention; that there are thousands of other cultures and they all work pretty well; that all cultures function on faith rather than truth; that there are lots of alternatives to our own society... It means we don't have to continue this way if we don't like it."
Audrey Hepburn // "I was born with an enormous need for affection, and a terrible need to give it."
George Harrison // "Why are you in the darkness? Look for the light. The light is within."
Haruki Murakami // "Maybe working on the little things as dutifully and honestly as we can is how we stay sane when the world is falling apart."
Charlie Chaplin // "To those who can hear me, I say, do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish… Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don’t hate! Only the unloved hate, the unloved and the unnatural... The kingdom of God is within man, not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people have the power, the power to create machines. The power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure... Let us use that power. Let us all unite."
Paul Newman // "Dreams without movement are delusions, escapes, kid’s play. You have to put your feet into your dreams if they’re ever going to be reality."
Tom Waits // "If you get far enough away you'll be on your way back home."
Albert Camus // "I like people who dream or talk to themselves... I like them, for they are double. They are here and elsewhere."
Frida Kahlo // "I used to think I was the strangest person in the world but then I thought there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I do. I would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me, too. Well, I hope that if you are out there and read this and know that, yes, it’s true I’m here, and I’m just as strange as you."