Category: Quotes

Said A Blade Of Grass

16th October 2020
Quotes
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Said a blade of grass to an autumn leaf, ”You make such a noise falling! You scatter all my winter dreams!”

Said the leaf indignant, ”Low-born and low-dwelling! Songless, peevish thing! You live not in the upper air and you cannot tell the sound of singing.”

Then the autumn leaf lay down upon the earth and slept. And when spring came she waked again – and she was a blade of grass.

And when it was autumn and her winter sleep was upon her, and above her through all the air the leaves were falling, she muttered to herself, ”O these autumn leaves! They make such noise! They scatter all my winter dreams.”

Kahlil Gibran (1883- 1931)

Through Shadows To The Edge Of Night

20th September 2020
PoetryQuotes
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A dark forest
In a dark, dark forest. Photo © Mihaela Limberea

Home is behind, the world ahead,

And there are many paths to tread

Through shadows to the edge of night,

Until the stars are all alight.

Then world behind and home ahead,

We’ll wander back and home to bed.

Mist and twilight, cloud and shade,

Away shall fade! Away shall fade!

J.R.R. Tolkien, A Walking Song from The Fellowship of the Ring

A New Refutation of Time

10th September 2020
BooksQuotes
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Close up of fire

Time is a river that carries me away, but I am the river; it is a tiger that destroys me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire.

Jorge Luis Borges, A New Refutation of Time

I was nineteen when I discovered Borges, an age when the world is still new, and discoveries have a strong emotional effect. Reading Labyrinths for the first time is one of the motley experiences that shaped me into the person I am today.

The Refutation of Time (1946), an elegant essay on time, was later included in the Labyrinths volume from 1962. A mere quotation fails to convey Borges’ richness of thought, unexpected connections, and elegant prose.

If you haven’t read anything by Borges, I urge you to do so. I envy you the thrill of reading him for the first time.

Two books of Jorge Luis Borges

The first Borges books I bought back in the day from my meager student allowance. I still read them every few years, always remembering the joy I had experienced the first time. He imagined the universe as a library. Need I say more?

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The Theory Of Willlessness

29th August 2020
QuotesWriting
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A pine tree top against a background of dark storm clouds.
Before the storm. Photo © Mihaela Limberea

Nothing can be willed into being, only waited on, for, or waited out.

A.K. Ramanujan from “Journeys: A Poet’s Diary”

I often find myself thinking of Ramanujan‘s words, especially when the blank page stares at me, the cursor steadily flickering its accusatory blink. I delete more than I write. The inner critic is always on duty. But write I do, in the end. After all, “you can always edit a bad page; you can’t edit a blank page.” Jodi Picoult would know.

Fragmentary Blue

5th August 2020
ArtMillesgårdenPoetryQuotesSculpture
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Man and Pegasus statue by Carl Milles, at Millesgården, Sweden. Photo © Mihaela Limberea www.limberea.com
Man and Pegasus by Carl Milles, Millesgården, Sweden. Photo © Mihaela Limberea

Why make so much of fragmentary blue

In here and there a bird, or butterfly,

Or flower, or wearing-stone, or open eye,

When heaven presents in sheets the solid hue?

Since earth is earth, perhaps, not heaven (as yet)—

Though some savants make earth include the sky;

And blue so far above us comes so high,

It only gives our wish for blue a whet.

by Robert Frost (1874–1963)

Cultivate The Habit Of Zest

29th July 2020
ArtBlack & White PhotographyPhotographyQuotes
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Shadows of leaves over a parking sport in black and white. www.limberea.com
Photo © Mihaela Limberea

Cultivate the habit of zest. Purposefully seek out the beauty in the seemingly trivial. Especially in the trivial. The colors and shapes of the foods you eat. The shadows a vase makes on your table. The interesting faces of the people on the bus with you. – Karen Salmansohn

I snapped the image above with my iPhone (remember, the best camera is the one that you have with you) on my daily walk. A play of light and shadows, tree branches over a parking spot.

I’d make this the first rule of photography: always bring the camera; and your attention.

The Fairest Thing We Can Experience Is The Mysterious

17th June 2020
ArtMillesgårdenQuotesSculpture
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Angel Musicians by Carl Milles at Millesgården, Stockholm. Photo © Mihaela Limberea

The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a sniffed-out candle. – Albert Einstein

There Is No Time For Despair

25th April 2020
ArtQuotesWriting
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Photo © Mihaela Limberea

This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. This is how civilizations heal. I know the world is bruised and bleeding, and though it is important not to ignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to succumb to its malevolence. Like failure, chaos contains information that can lead to knowledge – even wisdom. Like art. – Toni Morrison

As always, books are comforting. Both to write and to read. To give away, to loan, or to borrow. To read aloud or listen to. A shelter from the madness outside. Consolation. Oh, the “sweet serenity of books,” as Longfellow puts it. 

I write a bit; I delete a bit more, pause, stare through the window at the rough sea and the white clouds of the surf. A blackbird jumps back and forth on the grass, looking for worms. The cat suns herself, lazily licking her paw. I write away the virus, the anxiety, the madding crowd.

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Our Uncertain Future, Temporarily Arrested

9th April 2020
LifeQuotes
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Photo © Mihaela Limberea

As for whether this is the last time we will hear a new Bob Dylan song. I certainly hope not. But perhaps there is some wisdom in treating all songs, or for that matter, all experiences, with a certain care and reverence, as if encountering these things for the last time. I say this not just in the light of the novel coronavirus, rather that it is an eloquent way to lead one’s life and to appreciate the here and now, by savouring it as if it were for the last time. To have a drink with a friend as if it were the last time, to eat with your family as it were the last time, to read to your child as if it were the last time, or indeed, to sit in the kitchen listening to a new Bob Dylan song as if it were the last time. It permeates all that we do with greater meaning, placing us within the present, our uncertain future, temporarily arrested.

Nick Cave, the Australian singer, songwriter, and front figure of the rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, on a question about Bob Dylan’s latest song in his Red Hand Files (where he answers questions from fans).

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Our Power Is Patience

30th March 2020
CreativityQuotesWriting
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“Novelists are not only unusually depressed, by and large, but have, on the average, about the same IQ as the cosmetics consultants at Bloomingdale’s department store. Our power is patience. We have discovered that writing allows even a stupid person to seem halfway intelligent, if only that person will write the same thought over and over again, improving it just a little bit each time. It is a lot like inflating a blimp with a bicycle pump. Anybody can do it. All it takes is time.”

Photo © Mihaela Limberea

I find solace in this Kurt Vonnegut quote in my moments of doubt, struggling with a text that doesn’t resemble in any way the picture I have in my head. I continue hammering at the keyboard, hoping to reach that exhilarating state when everything becomes possible.

From Suzanne McConnell’s book, Pity the Reader: On Writing with Style.

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