Paul Bowles // "Whenever he was en route from one place to another, he was able to look at his life with a little more objectivity than usual. It was often on trips that he thought most clearly, and made the decisions that he could not reach when he was stationary."
Jean-Michel Basquiat // "I was a really lousy artist as a kid. Too abstract, expressionist...really messy. I'd never win painting contests. I remember losing to a guy who did a perfect Spider-Man."
John Cassavetes // "Say what you are. Not what you would like to be. Not what you have to be. Just say what you are. And what you are is good enough."
Tove Jansson // "There's no need to imagine that you're a wondrous beauty, because that's what you are."
Jimi Hendrix // "I can't practice...it's always constantly...like a jam, you know. It's hard for me to remember any notes because I'm constantly trying to create other things. That's why I make a lot of mistakes."
Yohji Yamamoto // "At least partly, it is my fault. I wasn't able to change the world...maybe I became a little lazy, lazy about my customer, like a film director who is getting old and doesn't see the faces in his audience any more. I always said that I didn't care about the market but I should have kept on top of the way it was changing... People who are maybe not so intelligent are changing the world and I am very angry about that."
Paul Auster // "You can't see yourself. You know what you look like because of mirrors and photographs, but out there in the world, as you move among your fellow human beings...your own face is invisible to you. You see other parts of yourself, arms and legs, hands and feet...but never your face, and in the end...as far as others are concerned...your face is who you are... Even you, who have lived inside your body...would probably be unable to recognize your foot in an isolated photograph of that foot, not to speak of your ear, or your elbow...All so familiar to you in the context of the whole, but utterly anonymous when taken piece by piece. We are all aliens to ourselves..."
Joan Didion // "I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be."
Elizabeth Taylor // "It is strange that the years teach us patience; that the shorter our time, the greater our capacity for waiting."
Johnny Cash // "Life is rough so you gotta be tough."
Richard Feynman // "I have a friend who’s an artist...He’ll hold up a flower and say..."I as an artist can see how beautiful this is but you as a scientist take this all apart and it becomes a dull thing," and I think that he’s kind of nutty...I can appreciate the beauty of a flower. At the same time, I see much more...I could imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside, which also have a beauty... The fact that the colors in the flower evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting; it means that insects can see the color...the science knowledge only adds to the excitement, the mystery and the awe of a flower. It only adds."
Nikola Tesla // "My brain is only a receiver...in the Universe there is a core from which we obtain knowledge, strength and inspiration. I have not penetrated into the secrets of this core, but I know that it exists."