The celebrity never sees himself. I have some idea what I’m doing on that stage; above all, I have some idea what sustains me on that stage. But the celebrity is not exactly Jimmy, though he comes out of Jimmy and Jimmy nourishes that, too. I can see now, with hindsight, that I would’ve had to become a celebrity in order to survive.
~ James Baldwin
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Most people go through life dreading they’ll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They’ve already passed their test in life. They’re aristocrats.
~ Diane Arbus
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When a problem threatens to engulf you, there’s nothing like irrelevant detail to keep your head above water.
~ John le Carré
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Anyone who falls in love is searching for missing pieces of themselves.
~ Haruki Murakami
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Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our hardness yields, all our irritations and resentments flit away and a sunny spirit takes their place.
~ Mark Twain
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People try to get away from it all—to the country, to the beach, to the mountains. You always wish that you could too. Which is idiotic: you can get away from it anytime you like. By going within. Nowhere you can go is more peaceful—more free of interruptions—than your own soul.
~ Marcus Aurelius
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Art is theft, art is armed robbery, art is not pleasing your mother.
~ Janet Malcolm
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Our political life favors the extremes of speech; the man who is gifted in the arts of abuse is bound to be a notable, if not always a great figure.
~ John Kenneth Galbraith
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There is no substitute for the comfort supplied by the utterly taken-for-granted relationship.
~ Iris Murdoch
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It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.
~ James Baldwin
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