Virginia Woolf // "Happiness is in the quiet, ordinary things. A table, a chair, a book with a paper-knife stuck between the pages. And the petal falling from the rose, and the light flickering as we sit silent."
Hermann Hesse // "Most people...are like a falling leaf that drifts and turns in the air, flutters, and falls to the ground. But a few others are like stars which travel one defined path: no wind reaches them, they have within themselves their guide and path."
Charles Bukowski // "Lighting new cigarettes, pouring more drinks. It has been a beautiful fight. Still is."
Björk // "I feel in this time...it is a necessity to have a plan, a manifesto, an alternative. It’s a question of life and death for our species...after tragedies one has to invent a new world, knit it or embroider, make it up. It’s not gonna be given to you because you deserve it, it doesn’t work that way. You have to imagine something that doesn’t exist and dig a cave into the future and demand space. It’s a territorial hope affair...in the future it will become your reality."
Henry Miller // "The great ones do not set up offices, charge fees, give lectures, or write books. Wisdom is silent, and the most effective propaganda for truth is the force of personal example. The great ones attract disciples, lesser figures whose mission is to preach and to teach. These are gospelers who, unequal to the highest task, spend their lives in converting others. The great ones are indifferent, in the profoundest sense. They don’t ask you to believe: they electrify you by their behavior. They are the awakeners. What you do with your petty life is of no concern to them. What you do with your life is only of concern to you, they seem to say. In short, their only purpose here on earth is to inspire. And what more can one ask of a human being than that?"
Tom Waits // "Don't plant your bad days. They grow into weeks. The weeks grow into months. Before you know it you got yourself a bad year. Take it from me. Choke those little bad days. Choke 'em down to nothin'. They're your days. Choke 'em!"
Leonard Cohen // "You’ve got to be serious about what you do. And you’ve got to understand the price you pay for frivolity or just for greed...it’s a very high price, especially if you’re involved in this sacred material, which is about the human heart and human desire and human tragedy. If there isn’t some element of seriousness in the training of the artist or in the atmosphere that surrounds the enterprise, then this shabbiness grows and eventually overwhelms it. I think that’s what we’re in now."
Nick Cave // "A friend called our new world 'a ghost ship'...and maybe she is right. She has recently lost someone dear to her and recognises acutely the premonitory feeling of a world about to be shattered...and that we will need to put ourselves back together again, not only personally, but societally. In time we will be given the opportunity to either contract around the old version of ourselves and our world...insular, self-interested and tribalistic...or understand the connectedness and commonality of all humans, everywhere. In isolation, we will be presented with our essence...of what we are personally and what we are as a society. We will be asked to decide what we want to preserve about our world and ourselves, and what we want to discard. Eventually these questions will become of acute significance, but they are not for now. Now is a time to listen to those in more informed positions and to follow instructions, as difficult as that may be, as we step into the unprecedented unknowable. We should be careful about the noises we make...especially those with a public voice...and should not pretend to know what we do not. From within the clamour and tonnage of information and misinformation, of opinions and counter-opinions, of blame-games and grim prophecy and the most panic-inducing version of 'Imagine' ever recorded, emerges a simple message...wash your hands and (if you can) stay at home."
James Baldwin // "The role of the artist is exactly the same role of the lover. If I love you, I have to make you conscious of things you don't see."
Ingmar Bergman // "I am living permanently in my dream, from which I make brief forays into reality."
Nina Simone // "What kept me sane was knowing that things would change, and it was a question of keeping myself together until they did."
Bob Dylan // "You have to work out where your place is. And who you are. But we're all spirit. That's all we are, we're just walking dressed up in a suit of skin, and we're going to leave that behind."