“As for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.” — Herman Melville, Moby-Dick “Ye cannot live for yourselves; a thousand fibres connect you with your fellow-men, and along those fibres, as along sympathetic threads, run your actions as causes, and…
“If you get stuck, get away from your desk. Take a walk, take a bath, go to sleep, make a pie, draw, listen to music, meditate, exercise; whatever you do, don’t just stick there scowling at the problem. But don’t make telephone calls or go to a party; if you do, other people’s words will…
“Never waste valuable time or mental peace of mind, on the affairs of others — that is too high a price to pay.” — Robert Greene The world may feel off-kilter, and in fact it surely is, but we must choose a path of productivity and consequence anyway. We can’t produce anything consequential if we’re…
‘Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.“ — Neil Gaiman, Coraline We talk about evil in the world, the worst of humanity, beasts of unimaginable strength and viciousness… but most dragons aren’t out there in the world, not…
“The most difficult thing is the decision to act. The rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process, is its own reward.” — Amelia Earhart I woke up sore all over, with…
“Do not do what someone else could do as well as you. Do not say, do not write what someone else could say, could write as well as you. Care for nothing in yourself but what you feel exists nowhere else. And, out of yourself create, impatiently or patiently, the most irreplaceable of beings.” —…
“If you want to write, if you want to create, you must be the most sublime fool that God ever turned out and sent rambling. You must write every single day of your life. You must read dreadful dumb books and glorious books, and let them wrestle in beautiful fights inside your head, vulgar one…
“The ability to fantasize is the ability to grow. [For] boys and girls… the most important time of their day, or especially at night before going to sleep, is dreaming themselves into becoming something, or being something. Into being something. So when you’re a child you begin to dream yourself into a shape, and then…
We must consume books and art and bits of the universe both sweet and bitter to produce anything of consequence. From birth we’re actively consuming to stay alive and grow, to learn from those who came before us and ultimately to mold ourselves into an active, thinking adult. But we weren’t born to be sponges,…
“A library is a good place to go when you feel unhappy, for there, in a book, you may find encouragement and comfort. A library is a good place to go when you feel bewildered or undecided, for there, in a book, you may have your question answered. Books are good company, in sad times…
