Pablo Picasso // "What do you think an artist is? An imbecile who only has eyes, if he is a painter, or ears if he is a musician...or even, if he is a boxer, just his muscles? Far from it: at the same time he is also a political being, constantly aware of the heartbreaking, passionate, or delightful things that happen in the world, shaping himself completely in their image... No, painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war."
James Baldwin // "The place in which I'll fit will not exist until I make it."
Miles Davis // "Anybody can play. The note is only 20 percent. The attitude of the motherfucker who plays it is 80 percent."
Simone Weil // "Pain and suffering are a kind of currency passed from hand to hand until they reach someone who receives them but does not pass them on."
David Lynch // "I long for a kind of quiet where I can just drift and dream."
Daniel Day-Lewis // "I am more greatly moved by people who struggle to express themselves. I prefer...incoherence in the face of great feeling to beautiful, full sentences that convey little emotion."
Rinus Van de Velde // "Let them talk...don't forget that opinions are easy. They are not in your shoes. Be an artist, don't listen, only answer to yourself."
Kurt Vonnegut // "Nobody will stop you from creating. Do it tonight. Do it tomorrow. That is the way to make your soul grow... The kick of creation is the act of creating, not anything that happens afterward. I would tell all of you watching this screen: Before you go to bed, write a four line poem. Make it as good as you can. Don’t show it to anybody. Put it where nobody will find it. And you will discover that you have your reward."
Thich Nhat Hanh // "We often think of peace as the absence of war, that if powerful countries would reduce their weapon arsenals, we could have peace. But if we look deeply into the weapons, we see our own minds...our own prejudices, fears and ignorance. Even if we transport all the bombs to the moon, the roots of war and the roots of bombs are still there, in our hearts and minds, and sooner or later we will make new bombs. To work for peace is to uproot war from ourselves and from the hearts of men and women."
Virginia Woolf // "One has a profound, if irrational, instinct in favor of the theory that the union of man and woman makes for the greatest satisfaction, the most complete happiness. But the sight of the two people...made me also ask whether there are two sexes in the mind...and whether they also require to be united in order to get complete satisfaction and happiness...so that in each of us two powers preside, one male, one female; and in the man's brain the man predominates over the woman, and in the woman's brain the woman predominates over the man. The normal and comfortable state of being is that when the two live in harmony together... A great mind is androgynous. It is when this fusion takes place that the mind is fully fertilized and uses all its faculties. Perhaps a mind that is purely masculine cannot create, any more than a mind that is purely feminine, I thought."
Joan Didion // "I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be."
Justin Vernon // "I was by myself for a pretty long time. I needed to do that. I think everyone that I know has wanted to do that or needed to do that at some point. I think when you spend enough time when it’s quiet around you and you don’t open your mouth for three or four days, there’s parts of your brain that can kind of rest. I think when we’re out in the world and we have to talk to people, we edit ourselves. You know, we have to like, act a little bit. As honest as we may be as humans, when we’re out here, we’re all kind of wearing mirrors on our faces. You know, constantly reacting to how to react to the people around you. And I think when you’re alone for a long enough time, you can feel a lot more peace."