GEMS
“Colour is my day-long obsession, joy and torment.” - Claude Monet *
There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathize with the color, the beauty, the joy of life. The less said about life’s sores the better. —Oscar Wilde *
Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea. —Robert A. Heinlein *
Not everyone will understand your journey. That’s okay. You’re here to live your life, not to make everyone understand. —Banksy *
How can I be substantial if I do not cast a shadow? I must have a dark side also If I am to be whole. ―C.G. Jung *
The lotus is the most beautiful flower, whose petals open one by one. But it will only grow in the mud. In order to grow and gain wisdom, first you must have the mud — the obstacles of life and its suffering. … The mud speaks of the common ground that humans share, no matter what our stations in life. … Whether we have it all or we have nothing, we are all faced with the same obstacles: sadness, loss, illness, dying and death. If we are to strive as human beings to gain more wisdom, more kindness and more compassion, we must have the intention to grow as a lotus and open each petal one by one. ―Goldie Hawn *
There is a candle in your heart, ready to be kindled.
There is a void in your soul, ready to be filled.
You feel it, don’t you?
—Rumi *
We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations. ―Anaïs Nin *
I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can’t see from the center. ―Kurt Vonnegut *
This is one of the two great labyrinths into which human minds are drawn: the question of free will versus predestination. ―Neal Stephenson *
We need not destroy the past. It is gone. —John Cage *
Real obstacles don’t take you in circles. They can be overcome. Invented ones are like a maze. —Barbara Sher *
I know simply that the sky will last longer than I. —Albert Camus The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays *
Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time. ―Marthe Troly-Curtin Phrynette Married *
People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within. —Elisabeth Kubler-Ross *
But the beauty is in the walking ― we are betrayed by destinations. ―Gwyn Thomas *
Anyone can be passionate, but it takes real lovers to be silly. —Rose Franken *
There comes a time in a man’s life when to get where he has to go–if there are no doors or windows–he walks through a wall. —Bernard Malamud *
…some questions will ruin you if you are denied the answer long enough. —Jeff Vandermeer Annihilation *
I’m not so weird to me. ―Haruki Murakami The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle *
And in the halls I hear it sung
That youth is wasted on the young
And these are words that can weigh a ton you know
But one day you’ll know what they meant
When you wonder where the wonder went
And all the world is sinking like a stone —Patrick Park The Lucky Ones *
Worry is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained. —Arthur Somers Roche *
I can tell by your face
That you’re looking to find a place
To settle your mind
And reveal who you are. And you shouldn’t be shy
For I’m not gonna try
To hurt you or heal you
Or steal your star. —Carole King/Toni Stern As We Go Along *
Life is too important to be taken seriously. —Oscar Wilde *
Aerodynamically, the bumble bee shouldn’t be able to fly, but the bumble bee doesn’t know it so it goes on flying anyway. —Mary Kay Ash *
You can’t do sketches enough. Sketch everything and keep your curiosity fresh. —John Singer Sargent *
God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat. He has no real style. He just keep on trying other things. —Pablo Picasso Life with Picasso *
When people are ready to, they change. They never do it before then, and sometimes they die before they get around to it. You can’t make them change if they don’t want to, just like when they do want to, you can’t stop them. —Andy Warhol Andy Warhol: In His Own Words *
I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become. ―C.G. Jung *
I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine.
―William Shakespeare A Midsummer Night’s Dream *
Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing. ―W.B. Yeats *
You will say that I am old and mad, was what Michelangelo wrote, but I answer that there is no better way of being sane and free from anxiety than by being mad. —David Markson Wittengenstein’s Mistress *
"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to."
"I don’t much care where –"
"Then it doesn’t matter which way you go."
―Lewis Carroll (Alice and the Caterpillar) Alice in Wonderland *
I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind. Some come from ahead and some come from behind. But I’ve bought a big bat. I’m all ready you see. Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me! ―Dr. Seuss I Had Trouble In Getting to Solla Solew *
Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place. —Zora Neale Hurston *
Garden fairies come at dawn,
Bless the flowers then they’re gone.
—Author Unknown *
When I was young I asked more of people than they could give: everlasting friendship, endless feeling.
Now I know to ask less of them than they can give: a straightforward companionship. And their feelings, their friendship, their generous actions seem in my eyes to be wholly miraculous: a consequence of grace alone.
—Albert Camus The First Man: Le Premier Homme *
Old stories would tell how Weavers would kill each other over aesthetic disagreements, such as whether it was prettier to destroy an army of a thousand men or to leave it be, or whether a particular dandelion should or should not be plucked. For a Weaver, to think was to think aesthetically. To act–to Weave–was to bring about more pleasing patterns. They did not eat physical food: they seemed to subsist on the appreciation of beauty. —China Miéville Perdido Street Station *
So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness. —Hermann Hesse Trees: Reflections and Poems *
It felt like being a child again, though it was not. Being a child is like nothing. It’s only being. Later, when we think about it, we make it into youth. ―China Miéville Embassytown *
The ugly duckling is a misunderstood universal myth. It’s not about turning into a blonde Barbie doll or becoming what you dream of being; it’s about self-revelation, becoming who you are. —Baz Luhrmann *
There are times in life when people must know when not to let go. Balloons are designed to teach small children this. —Terry Pratchett *
The day will be routine until the very moment it isn’t, as most days are when everything changes. —Eric Laster Welfy Q Deederhoth *
“Oh, monsters are scared,” said Lettie. “That’s why they’re monsters. And as for grown-ups … ” She stopped talking, rubbed her freckled nose with a finger. Then, I’m going to tell you something important. Grown-ups don’t look like grown-ups on the inside either. Outside, they’re big and thoughtless and they always know what they’re doing. Inside, they look just like they always have. Like they did when they were your age. The truth is, there aren’t any grown-ups. Not one, in the whole wide world. ” —Neil Gaiman The Ocean at the End of the Lane *
To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. —Corinthians 12, verses 7-10
