Quotes
The moment one gives close attention to any thing, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself. -Henry Miller
It has become a necessity for me to write down my early memories. If I neglect to do so for a single day, unpleasant physical symptoms immediately follow. As soon as I set to work they vanish and my head feels perfectly clear.... Something within me has been touched. A gradient has formed, and I must write. -Carl Jung, from Memories, Dreams, and Reflections
You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait. Do not even wait, be quite still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet. -Franz Kafka
I don't teach writing. I teach patience. Toughness. Stubbornness. The willingness to fail. I teach life. The odd thing is most of the things that stop an inexperienced writer are so far from the truth as to be nearly beside the point. When you feel global doubt about your talent, that is your talent. People who have no talent don't have any doubt. -Richard Bausch, from Off the Page: Writers Talk About Beginnings, Endings, and Everything In Between
In 1998, a full decade after getting sick....I was not getting any better. Memory, abstract reasoning, word finding and other vital cognitive functions remained gravely problematic.... Since I could not presume that I would remember anything, I must live fully in the present. Since I could not presume that I would understand anything, I must feel and experience my life in the moment and not always press to formulate ideas about it. Since I could not escape my body and the limits it had imposed on me, I must learn to be at home in it. Since I could do so little, it was good to live in a place where there is so little to do. And since I could not presume that I would master anything I did, I must relinquish mastery as a goal and seek harmony instead.... Of this necessity had come a [Read More …]
For two personalities to meet is like mixing two chemical substances: if there is any combination at all, both are transformed. -Carl Jung
We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. -Martin Luther King
What we call "I" is just a swinging door which moves when we inhale and when we exhale. -Shunryu Suzuki
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. -Winston Churchill
Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. -Anais Nin