Any fool can turn a blind eye but who knows what the ostrich sees in the sand. 

the biggest human temptation is to settle for too little

a coincidence is an explanation waiting to happen. 

drawing in a sketchbook teaches first to look, and then to observe and finally perhaps to discover … and it is then that inspiration might come.

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, -

One clover, and a bee, 
And revery.

The revery alone will do
If bees are few.

you are born alone. you die alone. the value of the space in between is trust and love.

it's not the walk, it's the road

courage is being scared to death, and saddling up anyway

any meal is the labour of countless beings. let us remember their toil.

industry doesn't fail to satisfy

have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.

on the stage of life a change of scene can further the action.

art is a constant source of support and encouragement for our better selves.

if you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there. 

what cannot be said, will be wept.

what you think you become.
what you feel you attract.
what you imagine, you create.

that which i don't have, i don't need.

great minds discuss ideas,
average minds discuss events,
small minds discuss people.

it's a good thing to go ahead with an idea, no hampering, and show it in its pure, uncontaminated form. the first idea is the idea that prevails. in a way all of this has to do with the inner eye, otherwise the idea wouldn't have come to you. 

only when the artist doesn't know what he's doing anymore, he is making beautiful things

make the most of today. get interested in something. shake yourself awake. develop a hobby. let the winds of enthusiasm sweep through you. live today with gusto

i shut my eyes in order to see

kindness is like snow, it beautifies everything it covers

to be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting.

all that was starting. his hand, that she wouldn't ever have wanted to hold, that she wouldn't have squeezed back, his stubborn patient hand was able, after all, to get the ferns to rustle and the streams to flow, to waken a sly luxuriance. 

  p. 64 - WILD SWANS, from the collection THE BEGGAR MAID

"the poems i write that i like are the ones that sort of tumble out of me quickly, without too much thought. i know that's supposed to be bad, and i'm supposed to think endlessly about the perfect word or phrase or iambic pentameter, but i can't be bothered. so my poetry will never be great. but it speaks what i need it to speak and for now that is more than enough. and i appreciate the great poets and no longer worry that i don't write like that."

i am on my way

"so. what did you decide to do?"
"what women always do. i gave in, of course. [...] but like women also do, i was going to watch, and wait. [...]"
- ann in THE TURN OF THE SCREW, loosely based upon Henry James' 1898 novel

it's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see

in life, some good luck is imperative

                outside the open window
the morning air is all awash with angels
- from: love calls us to the things of this world

some shadows are not discovered until years later in an hour of peace and pause

everything rolls, everything comes back; eternally rolls the wheel of being

it is well for the heart to be naive and the mind not to be

to keep the heart soft and pliable is necessary to be an artist. perhaps the heart must be broken often for this to be our natural state.

to observe attentively is to remember distinctly

nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose

... i think of what hobie said : beauty alters the grain of reality. and i keep thinking too of the more conventional wisdom : namely, that the pursuit of pure beauty is a trap, a fast track to bitterness and sorrow, that beauty has to be wedded to something more meaningful.

 - from : THE GOLDFINCH, donna tartt, p. 760

to understand the world at all, sometimes you could only focus on a tiny bit of it, look very hard at what was close to hand and make it stand in for the whole; ...

 - from : THE GOLDFINCH, donna tartt, p. 603

this will not be taken from us : reading.
breathlessly turning a page,
removed from ordinariness complete.
the reader abides loneliness.

and at once i knew i was not magnificent

life appears to me too short to be spent nursing animosity or registering wrongs

change will lead to insight far more often than insight will lead to change

i have learned that to be with those that i love is enough

true greatness consists in being great in little things

know how to live the time that is given you

truth is so rare that it is delightful to tell

own only what you can always carry with you: know languages, know countries, know people. let your memory be your travel bag.

but here by the mill the castled clouds
mocked themselves in the dizzy water...

to see the summer sky
is poetry, though never in a book it lie -
true poems flee

the world won't come to me, so i must go to it.
  - welty in THE GOLDFINCH, donna tartt, p. 139

always in fiction; you go on a journey, or a stranger comes to town 
or, you either go there, or they come here

everything will be okay. in the end.
if it's not okay, it is not the end

a comfort zone is a place of refuge. this is why a stay here is temporary

all life is an experiment. the more experiments you make the better

"... what o' that? you blew out my light!"
  - meryl streep in DOUBT

have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves

the brain is wider than the sky

understanding the secret of life is taking life as it is

though outwardly a gloomy shroud,
the inner half of every cloud
is bright and shining:
i therefore turn my clouds about
and always wear them inside out
to show the lining
 - from: the wisdom of folly

o, it is pleasant, with a heart at ease,
  just after sunset, or by moonlight skies,
to make the shifting clouds be what you please,
 - from: the book of the sonnet, 1867., xi. fancy in nubibus

and from the midst of cheerless gloom
i passed to bright unclouded day
 - from: a holiday

rhythm is freedom and discipline combined

in three words i can sum up everything i've learned about life: it~goes~on

you don't take a photograph, you make it

if equal affection cannot be,
let the more loving one be me
 - from : the more loving one

sometimes it's a form of love just to talk to somebody that you have nothing in common with and still be fascinated by their presence

love is the only gold

how absurd and delicious it is to be in love with somebody younger than yourself. everybody should try it

there is no charm equal to tenderness of heart

be of love a little more careful than of anything

to say i love you one must first be able to say i

yet it is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth sometimes comes to the top

in dreams begins responsibility

all men are equal before fish

we should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy, even if it is only picking grapes or sorting the laundry

be obscure clearly

life is hard. after all it kills you

it takes a long time to become young

a picture is worth a thousand words

art is the proper task of life

weather forecast for tonight : dark

a day without sunshine is like, you know, night

the best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time

lost time is never found again

dogs have masters. cats have staff.

when in doubt, take more time

secrets, a priori, cannot be known, or they cease to exist
  - from bookwork TITOK by robbin a. silverberg and secret providers, NYC: 1996. Ed. of 5.

only the knife knows what goes on in the heart of a pumpkin

for whatever we lose {a you or a me}
it's always ourselves we find in the sea

if plan A fails, turn to another letter of the alphabet

i hope you love birds too. it is economical. it saves going to heaven

the only thing about perseverance is keeping at it

loving it. educating it. guiding it.
having a child is not all that it's made out to be.

he that won't be counseled, can't be helped

the best way out of a mental block is to just ignore it and make.

always try to be a little kinder than is necessary

out of damp and gloomy days, out of solitude, out of loveless words directed at us, conclusions grow up in us like fungus: one morning they are there, we know not how, and they gaze upon us, morose and gray. woe to the thinker who is not the gardener but only the soil of the plants that grow in him.

all cats have autism

one generation plants the trees, another gets the shade

it seems that for success in science or art, a dash of autism is essential

perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously near to wanting nothing.

la conscience vient au jour avec la révolte

weird is a side effect of awesome

you will never leave where you are until you see where you'd rather be

if we don't need the things we lose
we can rejoice our every loss more

"... when a man shows his true colours, that's when a woman makes a decision to go or to no go."
 - conversation between pam grier and julia roberts in LARRY CROWN

i'm nobody. who are you?

it is only by refusing to move onwards that we truly die
- from: the radiant way

a goal without a plan is just a wish

quand tu n'as pas de tête, il te faut des jambes
 - dixit isabelle, dame de cuisine

ich muss mein Rennen fahren, nicht gegen die anderen

the best remedy for melancholy is industry
- from : THE WEIGHT OF WATER

ony when things are investigated is knowledge extended
only when knowledge is extended are thoughts sincere
only when thoughts are sincere are minds rectified
only when minds are rectified are the characters of persons cultivated
only when character is cultivated are our families regulated
only when families are regulated are states well governed
only when states are well governed is there peace in the world

all that we see or seem
is but a dream within a dream
 - from: a dream within a dream

it is far more challenging to agree that things simply coincide than it is to assume things happen for a reason

... not a calamity, a mercy
 - from: my cousin rachel

all anyone needs is an opportunity to shine

dyslexics of the world, untie! 

when the heart weeps for what it has lost,
the soul laughs for what it has found.

"... the sentimentalist must be stoned to death. he makes everyone uncomfortable".
 - a conversation between christopher tietjens and valentine wannop in PARADE'S END

we have art in order not to die of the truth

if you correct your mind, the rest of your life will fall into place

do i contradict myself?
very well then i contradict myself,
(i am large, i contain multitudes.)
 - from: song of myself

time is but the stream i go a-fishing in