Theodora Goss

“As you read a book word by word and page by page, you participate in its creation, just as a...

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 08:30:30 -0400

“As you read a book word by word and page by page, you participate in its creation, just as a cellist playing a Bach suite participates, note by note, in the creation, the coming-to-be, the existence, of the music. And, as you read and re-read, the book of course participates in the creation of you, your thoughts and feelings, the size and temper of your soul.” —Ursula K. Le Guin

Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it. —Mary Oliver

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 09:20:00 -0400

Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.

—Mary Oliver

“Dancing is just discovery, discovery, discovery. As is all art.” —Martha Graham

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 09:17:10 -0400

“Dancing is just discovery, discovery, discovery. As is all art.” —Martha Graham

“Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how. The moment you know how,...

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 09:16:44 -0400

“Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how. The moment you know how, you begin to die a little. The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark.” —Agnes de Mille

Pan and Psyche by Gustav Klimt

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 09:14:23 -0400

Pan and Psyche by Gustav Klimt

“When we are doing something because it is expected of us or to please somebody else or...

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 14:45:00 -0400

“When we are doing something because it is expected of us or to please somebody else or because we are afraid of somebody else, we become further alienated from a sense of living authentically.

“If we just keep living out a role we know well, the cost of that is to become increasingly cut off from that which is in the collective unconscious, that which not only nourishes us, but also provides the raw material that allows us to mess up.

“Very often in transition periods, that’s exactly what is called for, a change by going through chaos, of losing the way, of being lost in the forest for some time before we get through and find our path again.” —Jean Shinoda Bolen

“The witching hour, somebody had once whispered to her, was a special moment in the middle of...

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 14:44:30 -0400

“The witching hour, somebody had once whispered to her, was a special moment in the middle of the night when every child and every grown-up was in a deep deep sleep, and all the dark things came out from hiding and had the world all to themselves.” —Roald Dahl, The BFG

Basin à Reptiles by Palissy

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 14:43:16 -0400

Basin à Reptiles by Palissy

“I think you have to see the face of death in order to start writing seriously. There are people who...

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 22:52:00 -0400

“I think you have to see the face of death in order to start writing seriously. There are people who see the end quickly, like Rimbaud. When you start seeing it, you feel you have to rescue these things. Death is the great Maecenas, Death is the great angel of writing. You must write because you are not going to live any more.” —Carlos Fuentes

Pan with Us by Robert Frost Pan came out of the woods one day,— His skin and his hair and his...

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 22:51:00 -0400

Pan with Us
by Robert Frost

Pan came out of the woods one day,—
His skin and his hair and his eyes were gray,
The gray of the moss of walls were they,—
And stood in the sun and looked his fill
At wooded valley and wooded hill.
He stood in the zephyr, pipes in hand,
On a height of naked pasture land;
In all the country he did command
He saw no smoke and he saw no roof.
That was well! and he stamped a hoof.
His heart knew peace, for none came here
To this lean feeding save once a year
Someone to salt the half-wild steer,
Or homespun children with clicking pails
Who see no little they tell no tales.
He tossed his pipes, too hard to teach
A new-world song, far out of reach,
For a sylvan sign that the blue jay’s screech
And the whimper of hawks beside the sun
Were music enough for him, for one.
Times were changed from what they were:
Such pipes kept less of power to stir
The fruited bough of the juniper
And the fragile bluets clustered there
Than the merest aimless breath of air.
They were pipes of pagan mirth,
And the world had found new terms of worth.
He laid him down on the sun-burned earth
And ravelled a flower and looked away—
Play? Play?—What should he play?

Illustration from The Wind in the Willows by Arthur Rackham

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 22:48:00 -0400

Illustration from The Wind in the Willows by Arthur Rackham

“This ability to persuade us of ‘truth,’ ‘authenticity,’ and...

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 22:44:00 -0400

“This ability to persuade us of ‘truth,’ ‘authenticity,’ and ‘sincerity’ never comes from the novel’s resemblance to or association with the real world we readers inhabit. It comes exclusively from the novel’s own being, from the words in which it is written and from the writer’s manipulation of space, time, and level of reality. If the words and the structure of a novel are efficient, and appropriate to the story that the novel intends to make persuasive, that means that its text is perfectly balanced. Theme, style, and points of view are so perfectly harmonized and the reader is so hypnotized and absorbed by what is being told that he completely forgets the way it is being told and is under the impression that technique and form have nothing to do with it, that life itself animates the work’s characters, landscapes, and events, which seem to the reader nothing less than reality incarnate, life in print. This is the great triumph of technical skill in novel writing: the achievement of invisibility, the ability to endow a story with color, drama, subtlety, beauty, and suggestive power so effectively that no reader even notices the story exists; under the spell of its craftsmanship, he feels that he is not reading but rather living a fiction that, for a while at least and as far as he is concerned, supplants life.” —Mario Vargas Llosa, Letters to a Young Novelist

“Will I write a sentence that will just float off the page? Easy reading is damn hard writing....

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 22:40:23 -0400

“Will I write a sentence that will just float off the page? Easy reading is damn hard writing. But if it’s right, it’s easy. It’s the other way round, too. If it’s slovenly written, then it’s hard to read. It doesn’t give the reader what the careful writer can give the reader.” —Maya Angelou

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Sat, 13 Apr 2013 16:33:18 -0400

“Living by synchronicity isn’t merely about getting messages. It is about growing the...

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 16:20:02 -0400

“Living by synchronicity isn’t merely about getting messages. It is about growing the poetic consciousness that allows us to taste and touch what rhymes and resonates in the world we inhabit, and how the world-behind-the-world reveals itself by fluttering the veils of our consensual reality.” —Robert Moss

Ophelia by John William Waterhouse

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 01:30:14 -0400

Ophelia by John William Waterhouse

“Having perfected our disguise, we spend our lives searching for someone we don’t fool.”...

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 01:27:00 -0400

“Having perfected our disguise, we spend our lives searching for someone we don’t fool.” —Robert Brault

“Make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously...

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 00:31:47 -0400

“Make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservation, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure.

“The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun. If you want to get more out of life, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear to you to be crazy. But once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty.” —Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild

“Without passion, all the skill in the world won’t lift you above craft. Without skill,...

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 07:48:37 -0400

“Without passion, all the skill in the world won’t lift you above craft. Without skill, all the passion in the world will leave you eager but floundering. Combining the two is the essence of the creative life.” —Twyla Tharp

Painting by Gerald A. Cooper

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 23:50:33 -0400

Painting by Gerald A. Cooper