quotes

a saturday afternoon bit of inspiration

in


The imagination has been so debased that imagination -- being imaginative -- rather than being the linchpin of our existence now stands as a synonym for something outside oursleves like science fiction or some new use for tangerine slices on raw pork chops -- what an imaginative summer recipe  -- and Star Wars! So imaginative and Star Trek -- so imaginative! And Lord of the Rings -- all those dwarfs -- so imaginative --

The imagination has moved out of the realm of being our link, our most personal link, with our inner lives and the world outside that world -- this world we share. What is schizophrenia but a horrifying state where what's in here doesn't match up with what's out there?

Why has imagination become a synonym for style?

I believe that the imagination is the passport we create to take us into the real world.

I believe the imagination is another phrase for what is most uniquely us. 

Jung says the the greatest sin is to be unconscious. 

Our boy Holden says "what scares me most is the other guy's face -- it wouldn't be so bad if you could both be blindfolded" -- most of the time the faces we face our not the other guys' but our own faces. And it's the worst kind of yellowness to be so scared of yourself you put blindfolds on rather than deal with yourself.
To face ourselves.
That's the hard thing.
The imagination.
That's God's gift to make the act of self-examination bearable.






quote from one of my all-time-favorite's Six Degrees of Separation.
image from fffound (i'm gonna look back to find the artist's name)

that's what she said...

in , ,



"a man has to find a good woman, and when he finds her he has to win her love. then he has to earn her respect. then he has to cherish her trust. and then he has to, like, go on doing that for as long as they live. until they both die. that's what it's all about. that's the most important thing in the world. that's what a man is, yaar. a man is truly a man when he wins the love of a good woman, earns her respect, and keeps her trust. until you do that, you're not a man."






Well, technically he (Gregory David Roberts) said it in his book, Shantaram. The book is a veritable treasure trove of quotes. But this is the one that stuck with me.

Can you tell I've been thinking a lot about love lately? Must be all those peonies in my love corner.






 And  then, he (husband-to-be) will learn to love my feet. All size ten of 'em.




I'm stuck in the basement...

in

...while the stain on the new wood stairs dries. And since I've lost all sense of time in this sunless room I've taken to blogging. Alot. Hence, the inordinant number of posts on this, Saturday the 13th of September.

And while I was on the Subway the other day I looked up to see "Poetry in Motion" had been replaced by quotes under a new title, and the following one by George Elliot kinda took my breath away...
"We do not expect people to be deeply moved by what is not unusual. If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence."
 
from Middlemarch
 
which reminds me of this fabulous poem found in Hafiz's The Gift (this was on the b-day card Stevie gave me first year and its stuck with me)...
Buttering the Sky
 
Slipping
On my shoes,
Boiling water,
Toasting bread,
Buttering the sky:
That should be enough contact
With God in one day
To make anyone
Crazy.
Inspired by this I'm going to try to add a section to this crazy, little blog of mine known as "quote of the day"--but with a slightly better title. Any ideas? I just will have to figure out how to archive it. This might be beyond my limited blogging capabilities. But I'm gonna give it a go nonetheless...
and yes, I'm exploring playing with both color and font...prepare!

Or So I Feel...

in ,

 

"A poet is somebody who feels, and who expresses his feelings through words.This may sound easy, but it isn't. A lot of people think or believe or know they feel -- but that's thinking or believing or knowing; not feeling. And poetry is feeling -- not knowing or believing or thinking. Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel. Why? Because whenever you think or you believe or you know,you're a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you're nobody-but-yourself.To be nobody-but-yourself -- in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else -- means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting. As for expressing nobody-but-yourself in words, that means working just a little harder than anybody who isn't a poet can possibly imagine. Why? Because nothing is quite as easy as using words like somebody else. We all of us do exactly this nearly all of the time - and whenver we do it, we are not poets. If, at the end of your first ten or fifteen years of fighting and working and feeling, you find you've written one line of one poem, you'll be very lucky indeed. And so my advice to all young people who wish to become poets is: do something easy, like learning how to blow up the world -- unless you're not only willing, but glad, to feel and work and fight till you die. Does this sound dismal? It isn't. It's the most wonderful life on earth.Or so I feel."e.e. cummings

This is absolutely one of my most favorite things in the world. Ever. When I heard this I was in my first year at Juilliard. It was the first month of school, I had just moved to New York and life seemed endless. And now its done. It was way too fast and entirely too long. I lived a million different lives in those four years. And if I could do it all over I wouldn't change a thing. But I wouldn't do it all over. Not for anything in the world.