War is a dreadful business, but it teaches everyone something; this particular war taught my Aunt Peg how to put on a show.
I hope that your heart is strong within your grieving.
If you clear out all of that space in your mind you would have a door way.
You didn’t show up ready enough, or fast enough, or openly enough for the idea to take hold within you and complete itself. Therefore, the idea went hunting for a new partner, and somebody else got to make the thing.
As Joan Didion said, “I don’t know what I think until I write about it.
I wrote that book anyhow, because I needed to write it for my own intimate purposes – and also because I was curious to see if I could convey my emotional experiences adequately on paper.
Perfectionism stops people from completing their work, yes – but even worse, it often stops people from beginning their work. Perfectionists often decide in advance that the end product is never going to be satisfactory, so they don’t even bother trying to be creative in the first place.
A true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that’s holding you back.
Polly was the same age as Alma, but daintier and startlingly beautiful. She looked like a perfect figurine carved out of fine French soap, into which someone had inlaid a pair of glittering peacock-blue eyes. But it was the tiny pink pillow of her mouth that made this girl more than simply pretty; it made her an unsettling little voluptuary, a Bathsheba wrought in miniature.
You may want your work to be perfect, in other words; I just want mine to be finished.
He didn’t quit his day job to follow his dream; he just folded his dream into his everyday life.
I don’t know exactly what I am, but I am curious enough to go find out!
Your ego is a wonderful servant, but it’s a terrible master – because the only thing your ego ever wants is reward, reward, and more reward. And since there’s never enough reward to satisfy, your ego will always be disappointed. Left unmanaged, that kind of disappointment will rot you from the inside out. An unchecked ego is what the Buddhists call “a hungry ghost” – forever famished, eternally howling with need and greed.
A man can’t help where he’s born. A cat can have kittens in the oven, but that don’t make ’em biscuits.
Most dangerously of all, such thinking assumes that if you cannot win, then you must not continue to play.
But to become an adult, one must step into the field of honor. Everything will be expected of you now. You will need to be vigilant in your principles. Sacrifices will be demanded. You will be judged. If you make mistakes, you must account for them. There will be instances when you must cast aside your impulses and take a higher stance than another person – a person without honor – might take. Such instances may hurt, but that’s why honor is a painful field.
Keep in mind that for most of history people just made things, and they didn’t make such a big freaking deal out of it.
You may spend your whole life following your curiosity and have absolutely nothing to show for it at the end except one thing. You will have the satisfaction of knowing that you passed your entire existence in devotion to the noble human virtue of inquisitiveness.
All the good ideas seem daunting at first.
I’ll tell you something, Vivian. I have no regrets. When I was a young girl, I honestly believed that a life spent in the theater would be nothing but fun. And God help me, kiddo – it was.