William Carlos Williams (September 17, 1883 – March 4, 1963) I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold
Wallace Earle Stegner On Wilderness
Wallace Earle Stegner (February 18, 1909 – April 13, 1993) Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed ... We need wilderness preserved — as much of it as is still left, and as many kinds — because it was the challenge against which …
Hermann Hesse On Solitude
Hermann Hesse (July 02, 1877 – August 09, 1962) Solitude is the path over which destiny endeavors to lead man to himself. Solitude is the path that men most fear. A path fraught with terrors, where snakes and toads lie in wait… Without solitude there is no suffering, without solitude there is no heroism. But …
Olivia Laing On Loneliness
Olivia Laing (April 14, 1977 -) You can be lonely anywhere, but there is a particular flavour to the loneliness that comes from living in a city, surrounded by millions of people. One might think this state was antithetical to urban living, to the massed presence of other human beings, and yet mere physical proximity …
Philip Milton Roth On Writing
Philip Milton Roth (March 19, 1933 – May 22, 2018) Writing turns you into somebody who’s always wrong. The illusion that you may get it right someday is the perversity that draws you on. What else could? As pathological phenomena go, it doesn’t completely wreck your life.
Susan Sontag On Time And Space
Susan Sontag (January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) Time exists in order that everything doesn’t happen all at once … and space exists so that it doesn’t all happen to you.
Lincoln Steffens On Knowledge
Lincoln Steffens (April 6, 1866–August 9, 1936) It is our knowledge — the things we are sure of — that makes the world go wrong and keeps us from seeing and learning.
Homer Simpson On Life
Homer Simpson Three sentences will get you through life. Number one, ‘Cover for me.’ Number two, ‘Oh, good idea, Boss.’ Number three, ‘It was like that when I got here.'
Niels Bohr On Religion
Niels Bohr (October 7, 1885–November 18, 1962) The fact that religions through the ages have spoken in images, parables, and paradoxes means simply that there are no other ways of grasping the reality to which they refer, but that does not mean that it is not a genuine reality. And splitting this reality into an …
Virginia Woolf On The Unknown
Virginia Woolf (January 25, 1882 – March 28, 1941) Making the unknown—known—in terms of one’s medium is all-absorbing—if you stop to think of the form—as form you are lost—The artist’s form must be inevitable—You mustn’t even think you won’t succeed—Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant—there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is …
Adyashanti On Yes To Life
Adyashanti (October 26, 1962 -) It takes a fierce and robust heart to say yes to life, to embrace the entirety of life on its terms, not on our imagined or idealized terms. This requires a connectedness to our spiritual essence, to who we really are.
Jane Hirshfield On Poetry
Jane Hirshfield (February 24, 1953 -) I don't think poetry is based just on poetry; it is based on a thoroughly lived life. And so I couldn't just decide I was going to write no matter what; I first had to find out what it means to live.
Anthony Burgess On Experience
Anthony Burgess (February 25, 1917 – November 22, 1993) Every grain of experience is food for the greedy growing soul of the artist.
Alan Lightman On Questions
Alan Lightman (November 28, 1948 -) Excerpt From Song of Two Worlds So much I’ve lost, I have nothing Except a fierce hunger To fathom this world. Naked, I knock on the door, Wearing only my questions. One thousand questions, and each gives An answer, which then forms a question. The questions and answers will …
Timothy Snyder On Truth
Timothy Snyder (August 18, 1969 -) Americans are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism…Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience… You submit to tyranny when you renounce the difference between what you want to hear and what is actually the case… Accepting Post-truth is pre-fascism, …
Ana Mendieta On Culture
Ana Mendieta (November 18, 1948 – September 8, 1985) The making of my ‘Silueta’ in nature keeps the transition between my homeland and my new home. It is a way of reclaiming my roots and becoming one with nature. Although the culture in which I live is part of me, my roots and cultural identity …
Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī On Joy
Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī (September 30, 1207 – December 17, 1273) Keep knocking, and the joy inside will eventually open a window and look out to see who's there.
Teju Cole On Blackface
Teju Cole (June 27, 1975 -) A photograph captures the thinnest sliver of time. Any photograph of a man in blackface—or any racist image—implies that “there’s a lot more where that came from.”
Pema Chödrön On Intention
Pema Chödrön (July 14, 1936 -) All activities should be done with one intention. That intention is to realize our connection with all beings.
Toni Morrison On Books And Questions
Toni Morrison (February 18, 1931 -) My books are always questions for me. What if? How does it feel to ...? Or what would it look like if you took racism out? Or what does it look like if you have the perfect town, everything you ever wanted? And so you ask a question, put …
Kahlil Gibran On Being Known
Kahlil Gibran (January 6, 1883–April 10, 1931) We all want that little light in us to be taken from under the bushel. The first poet must have suffered much when the cave-dwellers laughed at his mad words. He would have given his bow and arrows and lion skin, everything he possessed, just to have his …
Edward R Murrow On Truth
Edward R. Murrow (April 25, 1908 – April 27, 1965) Two of the staples of his diet are the investigation, protected by immunity, and the half-truth. (Speaking of Senator Joseph McCarthy in 1954 and applying to Donald Trump in 2019)
Sandy Denny On Time
Alexandra (Sandy) Elene MacLean Denny (January 06, 1947 – April 21, 1978) Across the morning sky, all the birds are leaving How can they know that it’s time to go? Before the winter fire, I’ll still be dreaming I do not count the time Who knows where the time goes? Who knows where the time …
Carl Gustav Jung On Inner Experiences
Carl Gustav Jung (July 26, 1875 – June 06, 1961) Recollection of the outward events of my life has largely faded or disappeared. But my encounters with the “other” reality, my bouts with the unconscious, are indelibly engraved upon my memory. Outward circumstances are no substitute for inner experience. I can understand myself only in …
Lucie Brock Broido On Freedom Of Speech
Lucie Brock Broido (May 22, 1956 – March 6, 2018) If my own voice falters, tell them hubris was my way of adoring you. The hollow of the hulk of you, so feverish in life, cut open, Reveals ten thousand rags of music in your thoracic cavity. The hands are received bagged and examination reveals …
Paola Antonelli On Flags As Symbols
Paola Antonelli (1963 -) Flags are soaring symbols of pride and community, as well as emotional, incendiary sparks for those on the other side of the barricade. They are among the most immediate, primal, and communicative forms of design. They are made of icons and become icons themselves — even more so when they come …
Gaston Bachelard On Life
Gaston Bachelard (June 27, 1884 – October 16, 1962) If our heart were large enough to love life in all its detail, we would see that every instant is at once a giver and a plunderer. Note: See more of Gaston Bachelard here.
Anne Lamott On Life
Anne Lamot (April 10, 1954 -) Even with the Internet, deciphering the genetic code, and great advances in immunotherapy, life is frequently confusing at best, and guaranteed to be hard and weird and sad at times… We witness and try to alleviate others’ suffering, but sometimes it just outdoes itself and we are left gasping, …
Rodman Edward “Rod” Sterling On TV Production
Rodman Edward "Rod" Serling (December 25, 1924 – June 28, 1975) It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper.
Haruki Murakami On Aging And Interviews
Haruki Murakami (January 12, 1949 -) The last time we did an interview was ten years ago, and many important things have happened in those ten years. For instance, I got ten years older. That’s a very important thing—at least to me. I’m getting older day by day, and as I get older I think …
Mary Oliver On Attention
Mary Oliver (September 10, 1935 - January 17, 2019) It has frequently been remarked, about my own writings, that I emphasize the notion of attention. This began simply enough: to see that the way the flicker flies is greatly different from the way the swallow plays in the golden air of summer. It was my …
