INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES
“Paint as you like and die happy.”
“Without passion, all the skills in the world won't lift you above craft. Without skill, all the passionin the world will leave you eager but floundering. Combining the two is the essence of the creative life.”
“There is a vitality, a life force that is translated through you—if you block it, it will never exist—and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is: nor how valuable it is; nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open,”
“Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love.”
“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”
“Knowing others is wisdom; knowing yourself is enlightenment.”
“The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials.”
“What is to give light must endure burning.”
“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
“If we could read the secret histories of our enemies, we should find in each man’s life, sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.”
“I thank God for my handicaps for, through them, I have found myself, my work, and my God.”
“Inside you there’s an artist you don’t know about . . . say yes quietly, if you know, if you’ve known it from before the beginning of the universe.”
“I discovered that people are not really afraid of dying: they’re afraid of not ever having lived, not ever having deeply considered their life’s higher purpose, and not ever having stepped into that purpose and at least tried to make a difference in the world.”
“I have come to realize that if I follow my dreams and intuition, and follow what has heart and meaning, it always works out.”
“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it, you will land among the stars.”
“Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you
do it.”
“If people know how hard I have had to work to gain my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful.”
“There is the risk you cannot afford to take, (and) there is the risk you cannot afford not to take.”
“It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.”
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.”
“Your wanting to be truthful, your enthusiasm, love for things and people, show that there is poetry and creative power in you.”
“I always view problems as opportunities in work clothes.”
“Some men see things as they are and say, ‘Why?’ I dream of things that never were and say, ‘Why not?’”
POETRY
I, too, dislike it:
There are things that are more important
beyond all this fiddle.
Reading it, however,
with a perfect contempt for it,
one discovers in it after all,
a place for the genuine.
SONG OF MYSELF
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
Fame is a bee.
It has a song—
It has a sting—
Ah, too, it has a wing.
“The pieces from the class that I will remember longest are those pieces that revealed to me the complexity of our humanity and the nature of grief and loss and ultimately, redemption. Often the things you want to keep hidden turn out to be the greatest gifts you have to give the world. And when it is couched in a work of art, it changes and often heals those who experience it, and often has the power to transform the world.”
“Stand tall with the work and give it the dignity of your courage. This is not therapy, but the creative act. This is not personal confession but a work of art. Deliver it in its swaddling clothes at the doorstep of the world.”
“I have never known any distress that an hour’s reading did not relieve.”
“Kindness is the highest wisdom. This goes double when it is toward yourself.”
“Structure your life around richness of experience rather than security.”
“A poet is someone who can pour light into a cup and raise it to nourish your beautiful, parched holy mouth.”
“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined.”
“People think I’m disciplined. It is not discipline. It is devotion. There is a great difference.”
“Sometimes I go about pitying myself. And all the while I am being carried on great winds across the sky.
“A hunch is creativity trying to tell you something.”
“A woman rarely becomes a poet because the fathers tell her to keep her body closed and the mothers agree. If you want to write, you will have to be as open as the sea. Apertura lluviosa.”
“Writing is not a performance. It is a generosity.”
“Failure is when you fall down and don’t get up! This thing we call failure is not the falling down, but the staying down.”
“Our own happiness is not a form of self-indulgence, but rather a precondition for doing good work in the world.”
“As we move toward our dreams, we move toward our divinity.”