Category: Wisdom

“We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that in the end we become disguised to ourselves.”

—Francois de La Rochefoucauld

“Wake up, wake up,

Awaken, awaken; sing a melody”

—Lekhah Dodi (the song that welcomes in the Jewish Sabbath. Sung Friday at dusk).

“My only advantage as a reporter is that I am so physically small, so temperamentally unobtrusive, and so neurotically inarticulate that people tend to forget that my presence runs counter to their best interests. And it always does. … Writers are always selling somebody out.” —Joan Didion (via The Writer’s Almanac).

“Why do keep spreading democracy to places that resent our spreading of it?” –John Stewart on the reelection of Hugo Chavez.

Best conversation ever at Consumating about this quote from Martha Graham…

“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening
that is translated through you into action,
and because there is only one of you in all time,
this expression is unique.

If you block it,
it will never exist through any other medium
and be lost.
The world will not have it.

It is not yours to determine how good it is;
nor how it compares with other expressions.
It is your business to keep the channel open.
You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work.
You have to keep open and aware directly
to the urges that motivate you.

Keep the channel open.
No artist is ever pleased.
There is no satisfaction whatever at any time.
There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction;
a blessed unrest that keeps us marching
and makes us more alive than the others.”

It may be the greatest sentiment about human creativity ever uttered. But if you’ve got another, please tell me.

(via my friend Tonya who first brought it up and Tim O. Thompson whom I first heard it from).

“When we are green, still half-created, we believe that our dreams are rights, that the world is disposed to act in our best interests, and that falling and dying are for quitters. We live on the innocent and monstrous assurance that we alone, of all of the people ever born, have a special arrangement whereby we will be allowed to stay green forever.”

—Tobias Wolff

“I believe in the unsubmissive, the unfaltering, the unassailable, the irresistible, the unbelievable—in other words, in an art of life.”

—Margaret Anderson (via The Writer’s Almanac)

“There’s gotta be a future, and it can’t be what is now ’cause you gotta build on a present and keep moving and going down. It’s supposed to be something you can’t think of now. That’s part of life, man.”

—August Wilson

“There are nights when I think Sal Paradise was right.
Boys and Girls in America have such a sad time together.”

—The Hold Steady

“Study the past. Champion the future”
—DJ Shadow (in a fantastic interview on Sound Opinions
)