“I see the shape of the poem before I start writing, and the writing is just the process of arriving at the shape.”
Carol Ann Duffy, poet
Image; Neil Bates
“Why shouldn’t we, so generally addicted to the gigantic, at last have some small works of art, some short poems, short pieces of music, some…”
Why shouldn’t we, so generally addicted to the gigantic, at last have some small works of art, some short poems, short pieces of music, some intimate, low-voiced, and delicate things in our mostly huge and roaring, glaring world?
“In a time of destruction, create something: a poem, a parade, a community, a school, a vow, a moral principle; one peaceful moment.”
“In a time of destruction, create something: a poem, a parade, a community, a school, a vow, a moral principle; one peaceful moment.”
Image: Anders Nord
“The New Year is a painting not yet painted… remember that you are blessed with the ability to reshape your life!”
“The New Year is a painting not yet painted; a path not yet stepped on; a wing not yet taken off! Things haven’t happened as yet! Before the clock strikes twelve, remember that you are blessed with the ability to reshape your life!”
— Mehmet Murat ildan, Turkish, writer
Image: Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (French, 1755–1842), self portrait
“It’s not where you take things from – it’s where you take them to.”
“It’s not where you take things from – it’s where you take them to.”
Jean-Luc Godard, Director
“Nothing can make our life, or the lives of other people, more beautiful than perpetual kindness.”
“Nothing can make our life, or the lives of other people, more beautiful than perpetual kindness.”
L. Tolstoy
“Enjoy yourself… The years go by, as quickly as a wink. Enjoy yourself, It’s later than you think”
As a birthday gift to myself I’m taking a blog-free holiday for the remainder of 2019. Wishing you all the best of the rest of this year and depart singing along to this tuneful reminder:
“You never go to night clubs and
You just don’t care to dance
You don’t have time for silly things
Like moonlight and romance
You only think of dollar bills
Tied neatly in a stack
But when you kiss a dollar bill,
It doesn’t kiss you back”
Song quotes from “Enjoy Yourself“, 1949. Recorded by Guy Lombardo and Louis Prima
Music written by Carl Sigman and lyrics by Herb Magidson.
Enjoy Yourself, (It’s Later Than You Think)
You work and work
For years and years
You’re always on the go
You never take the minute off
Too busy making dough
Someday you’ll say
You’ll have your fun
When you’re a millionaire
Imagine all…
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“Love people and use things because the opposite never works.”
“Love people and use things because the opposite never works.”
Joshua Fields Millburn, author, movie quote from Minimalism – A Documentary About Important Things
“Unexpected intrusions of beauty. This is what life is.”
“A poem should stimulate the sense of living and of being alive.”
“A poem should stimulate the sense of living and of being alive.”
Wallace Stevens, poet
Image: Alex Wing
“the only thing which makes it possible to regard this world we live in without disgust is the beauty which now and then men create out of the chaos… they paint… they compose… they write…”
“I have an idea that the only thing which makes it possible to regard this world we live in without disgust is the beauty which now and then men create out of the chaos.
The pictures they paint, the music they compose, the books they write, and the lives they lead. Of all these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of art.”
― The Painted Veil, 1925
“One looks, looks long, and the world comes in.”
“One looks, looks long, and the world comes in.”
-– Joseph Campbell, author
Image: Keegan Houser
“he erased the distinctions between art and ideas, putting a positive, endgame value on long-term exploring over short-term arriving”
“Leonardo’s great accomplishment was that he erased the distinctions between art and ideas, putting a positive, endgame value on long-term exploring over short-term arriving”
, art critic for the New York Times. Thoughts about the Louvre retrospective of Leonardo da Vinci and honoring the 500th anniversary of his death.
PARIS — To judge by the marketing hullabaloo, the Leonardo da Vinci retrospective that opens here Thursday at the Louvre should be the visual equivalent of a 21-gun salute and a trumpet-and-trombone choir. Blockbuster’s plastered all over it, and rightly so. Timed-ticket sales for its one-stop run are moving right along.
But the marvelous show you actually see, honoring the 500th anniversary of Leonardo’s death, is, tonally, some other thing: quieter, slower, better. It’s a succession of major painterly melodies set among ink-drawn pre-echoes and reverbs. It’s a confluence of presences and absences — art that’s there and some…
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“Establish enigmas, not explanations.”
“Creativity is the defeat of habit by originality.”
“You were placed on this earth to create, not to compete.”
“You were placed on this earth to create, not to compete.”
Robert Anthony, author
“To be ones self and unafraid whether right or wrong is more admirable than the easy cowardice of surrender to conformity.”
“To be ones self and unafraid whether right or wrong is more admirable than the easy cowardice of surrender to conformity.”
“Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake”
“Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake”
Wallace Stevens , poet, “Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction”, 1942.
Featured image: Eberhard Grossgasteiger
“folks expect of the poet… to indicate the path between reality and their souls”
“folks expect of the poet to… indicate the path between reality and their souls”
Walt Whitman, poet
“Every time you try to put your finger on it, it slips away.”
“Songwriting is about getting the demon out of me. It’s like being possessed. You try to go to sleep, but the song won’t let you.
So you have to get up and make it something, and then you’re allowed to sleep. So letting go is what the whole game is.
Every time you try to put your finger on it, it slips away.”
– John Lennon, songwriter, singer, composer, writer, musician
“Labour to keep alive in your Breast that Little Spark of Celestial fire Called Conscience.”
“Labour to keep alive in your Breast that Little Spark of Celestial fire Called Conscience.”
From Amor Towles “Rules of Civility” (The appendix: The Young George Washington’s Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation: Rule 110), Book quotes
Featured Image: Erzsébet Vehofsics
“The golden opportunity you are seeking is in yourself. It is not in your environment, it is not in luck or chance, or the help of others; it is in yourself alone.”
“The golden opportunity you are seeking is in yourself. It is not in your environment, it is not in luck or chance, or the help of others; it is in yourself alone.”
Orison Sweet Marden, author
Image: Ali Abdul Rahman
“Being Slow means that you control the rhythms of your own life… You decide…”
“Being Slow means that you control the rhythms of your own life.
You decide how fast you have to go in any context. If today I want to go fast, I go fast. If tomorrow I want to go slow, I go slow.
What we are fighting for is the right to determine our own tempos.”
“Begin doing what you want to do now… We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand – and melting like a snowflake.”
“Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand – and melting like a snowflake.”
In Memory: “Make a difference about something other than yourselves.”
“Make a difference about something other than yourselves.”
Toni Morrison, writer, 1931-2019
“The search for an equilibrium is essential for the artist, to be as aware of inner space as he is of outer space”
“The search for an equilibrium is essential for the artist, to be as aware of inner space as he is of outer space”
Mark Tobey, painter
“A man who works with his hands is a laborer; a man who works with his hands and his mind is a craftsman; but a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist.”
“A man who works with his hands is a laborer;
a man who works with his hands and his mind is a craftsman;
but a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist.”
Louis Nizer, lawyer, author
Featured image: Painter Eloy Morales – Self Portrait (a work in progress)
“Art is the funnel, as it were, through which spirit is poured into life.”
.
“Art is the funnel,
as it were,
through which spirit is poured into life.”.
Thomas Mann
Featured photo: Douglas Moorezart
“The artist is the hand that, by touching this or that key, sets the soul vibrating automatically.”
“The artist is the hand that, by touching this or that key, sets the soul vibrating automatically.”
Wassily Kandinsky, painter
“I totally believe that art is an open dialogue and that it is not logical. It does not always make sense.”
“I totally believe that art is an open dialogue and that it is not logical. It does not always make sense.”
