Taking Quotes (page 37)
Here," he said, "get yourself some healthy food. You look awful." I said he had done more than enough for me and that I couldn't accept money on top of everything else, but he refused to take it back. "It's not money," he said, "it's my feelings. Don't think about it too much, just take it." All I could do was thank him and accept the money.
Haruki Murakami
To have faith requires courage, the ability to take a risk, the readiness even to accept pain and disappointment. Whoever insists on safety and security as primary conditions of life cannot have faith; whoever shuts himself off in a system of defense, where distance and possession are his means of security, makes himself a prisoner. To be loved, and to love, need courage, the courage to judge certain values as of ultimate concern? and to take the jump and to stake everything on these values.
Erich Fromm
Do you think that Hemingway knew he was a writer at twenty years old? No, he did not. Or Fitzgerald, or Wolfe. This is a difficult concept to grasp. Hemingway didn't know he was Ernest Hemingway when he was a young man. Faulkner didn't know he was William Faulkner. But they had to take the first step. They had to call themselves writers. That is the first revolutionary act a writer has to make. It takes courage. But it's necessary
Pat Conroy
...you must be careful never to allow doubt to paralyze you. always take the decisions you need to take, even if you're not sure you're doing the right thing. You'll never go wrong if, when you make a decision, you keep in mind an old German proverb: 'The devil is in the detail.' Remember that proverb and you'll always be able to turn a wrong decision into a right one.
Paulo Coelho
A dad standing up near the stands' top with a Toshiba viewfinder to his eye takes a tomahawking baton directly in the groin and falls forward onto somebody eating a Funnel Cake, and they take out good bits of several rows below them, and there's an extended halt to the action, during which I decamp--steering clear of the sixteen-year-olds on the basketball court--and as I clear the last row yet another baton comes wharp-wharping cruelly over my shoulder, caroming viciously off big R.'s...
David Foster Wallace
You can get what you want. Never sell out. Don't break. Don't weaken. Don't let the kindness of strangers be your salvation, for it is no salvation at all. Unless you sleep alone, you sleep with the enemy. Never come out of the storm. On the other hand, maybe you should. You don't have what it takes to go the hard way. Come out of the cold and sit by the fire. Let them warm you with the smiles and promise of friendship's fortune. Lose your edge. A soft body and chained mind suit you. Chances...
Henry Rollins
I take thisfor myself, and you take up the thread of my life between your teeth, tin thread and tarnished with abuse, you shall still hearas long as the beast in me maintainsits taciturn power to close my lidsin tears, and my loins move yetin the ennobling pursuit of all the worldsyou have left me alone in, and would bethe dolorous distraction from, while you summon your army of anguisheswhich is a million hooting blood vesselson the eyes and in the earsat that instant before death.
Frank O'Hara
Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother...
Jim Jarmusch
Situations seem to happen to people, but in reality, they unfold from deeper karmic causes. The universe unfolds to itself, bringing to bear any cause that needs to be included. Don’t take this process personally. The working out of cause and effect is eternal. You are part of this rising and falling that never ends, and only by riding the wave can you ensure that the waves don’t drown you. The ego takes everything personally, leaving no room for higher guidance or purpose. If you can,...
Deepak Chopra