T.S. Eliot // "Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go."
Jeanne Moreau // "I know so many people staying in the same place, and I think, my God, look at them! They're dead before they die... I don't like going where I've already been. Life is a myriad of territories to discover. I don't want to waste time with what I already know."
John Cage // "I noticed...you get into a taxi and very frequently the poor taxi driver is just beside himself with irritation. And one day I got into one and the driver began talking...accusing absolutely everyone of being wrong...and I simply remained quiet. I did not answer his questions, I did not enter into a conversation, and very shortly the driver began changing his ideas and simply through my being silent he began...saying rather nice things about the world around him... My notion of how to proceed in a society to bring change is not to protest the thing that is evil, but rather to let it die its own death... I think we can state that the power structure is dying because it cannot make any inspiring statements about what it is doing. I think protests about these things...will give it the kind of life that a fire is given when you fan it, and that it would be best to ignore it, put your attention elsewhere, take actions of another kind of positive nature, rather than to continue to give life to the negative by negating it."
Swami Vivekananda // "Do one thing at a time and while doing it put your whole soul into it, to the exclusion of all else."
Martha Graham // "Some men have thousands of reasons why they cannot do what they want to, when all they need is one reason why they can."
Tom Waits // "I would rather be a failure on my own terms than a success on someone else's. That's a difficult statement to live up to, but then I've always believed that the way you affect your audience is more important than how many of them are there."
Muhammad Ali // "I would like to be remembered...as a man who never looked down on those who looked up to him, and who helped as many people as he could. As a man who stood up for his beliefs no matter what. As a man who tried to unite all humankind through faith and love. And if all that's too much, then I guess I'd settle for being remembered only as a great boxer who became a leader and a champion for his people. And I wouldn't even mind if folks forgot how pretty I was."
Nikki Giovanni // "Deal with yourself as an individual worthy of respect, and make everyone else deal with you the same way."
Jack Nicholson // "I'm dying to have my mind changed."
Rick Rubin // "Reading great novels...seeing a great movie...reading poetry... The more you can do to get out of the mode of competition, where you get out of what other people are doing and wanting to be better than them... The only way to use the inspiration of other artists is if you submerge yourself in the greatest works of all time... If you listen to the greatest songs ever made, that would be a better way to work through to find your own voice to matter today than listening to what's on the radio now and thinking, 'I want to compete with this.'"
T.E. Lawrence // "All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible."
Chris Hadfield // "In any new situation...you will almost certainly be viewed in one of three ways. As a minus one: actively harmful, someone who creates problems. Or as a zero: your impact is neutral and doesn't tip the balance one way or the other. Or you'll be seen as a plus one: someone who actively adds value. Everyone wants to be a plus one, of course. But proclaiming your plus-oneness at the outset almost guarantees you'll be perceived as a minus one, regardless of the skills you bring to the table or how you actually perform... At best...be a zero...a zero isn't a bad thing to be. You're competent enough not to create problems or make more work for everyone else. You have to be competent and prove to others that you are before you can be extraordinary. There are no shortcuts..."