Have you ever heard the wonderful silence just before the dawn? Or the quiet and calm just as a storm ends? Or perhaps you know the silence when you haven’t the answer to a question you’ve been asked, or the hush of a country road at night, or the expectant pause of a room full of people when someone is just about to speak, or, most beautiful of all, the moment after the door closes and you’re alone in the whole house? Each one is different, you know, and all very beautiful if you listen carefully.

— Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth
196 ♥

Poor boy, there is no hope for you. I have discovered your great wound; this flower in your side is destroying you.

— Franz Kafka, The Country Doctor
899 ♥

“Modern Art = I could do that + yeah, but you didn’t”

“Yeah, but you didn’t” was my exact response to one of the students saying “I could do that” when I introduced them to Pollock in Art Appreciation (for non-art majors) a few years ago.

129 ♥

Continuous effort — not strength or intelligence — is the key to unlocking our potential.

9 ♥

That is why it is so important to let certain things go. To release them. To cut loose. People need to understand that no one is playing marked cards; sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Don’t expect to get anything back, don’t expect recognition for your efforts, don’t expect your genius to be discovered or your love to be understood. Complete the circle. Not out of pride, inability, or arrogance, but simply because whatever it is no longer fits in your life. Close the door, change the record, clean the house, get rid of the dust. Stop being who you were and become who you are.

—

—Paulo Coelho

reblogging this again because I need the reminder

2233 ♥

You have been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn’t worked, try approving of yourself and see what happens.

— Louise L Hay
481 ♥

The real question is, can you love the real me? Not the perfect person you want me to be, not that image you had of me, but who I really am.

—

—Christine Feehan, Oceans of Fire

no she couldn’t… so i left. ironically, she hates me for leaving her.

418 ♥

I love you” I proclaimed,
into the air, to nobody,
just to hear what it would
sound like.

168 ♥

Love is a form of prejudice. You love what you need, you love what makes you feel good, you love what is convenient. How can you say you love one person when there are ten thousand people in the world that you would love more if you ever met them? But you’ll never meet them. All right, so we do the best we can. Granted. But we must still realize that love is just the result of a chance encounter. Most people make too much of it.

—

—Charles Bukowski

very well put

223 ♥

Before you act, listen.
Before you react, think.
Before you spend, earn.
Before you criticize, wait.
Before you pray, forgive.
Before you quit, try.

— Ernest Hemingway
81 ♥

Human beings are funny. They long to be with the person they love but refuse to admit openly. Some are afraid to show even the slightest sign of affection because of fear. Fear that their feelings may not be recognized, or even worst, returned. But one thing about human beings puzzles me the most is their conscious effort to be connected with the object of their affection even if it kills them slowly within.

—

—Sigmund Freud

I really should get this tattooed on my forearm. 

5611 ♥

I have scars on my hands from touching certain people.

— J.D. Salinger
11330 ♥

What an overwhelming lesson to all artists! Be not afraid of absurdity; do not shrink from the fantastic. Within a dilemma, choose the most unheard-of, the most dangerous, solution. Be brave, be brave!

—

—Isak Dinesen, The Deluge at Nordenay

Great find.
This is (or can be) a lot harder than it sounds. Pushing past what you know and breaking down the walls of what you’ve decided subconsciously is fair game for your art is a bit like trying get lost in a maze that you designed. Artists self censor a lot more than I think they like to admit.

Anyone that wants to dig into this type of thing more should read Robert Irwin’s bio (Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees), that man was great at really digging into the what and why of his art making. At one point in his career (as his paintings were doing well and he was beginning to make a name for himself) he got rid of his studio and pretty much everything he had because he knew if he kept getting up every day and going to his studio he was going to keep putting out the same kind of work.

517 ♥

And it was like giving four sharp knocks at the door of unhappiness.

— Albert Camus
6 ♥