Life, as it is called, is for most of us one long postponement

"The art of living is based on rhythm - on give and take, ebb and flow, light and dark, life and death. By acceptance of all the aspects of life, good and bad, right and wrong, yours and mine, the static, defensive life, which is what most people are cursed with, is converted into a dance, 'the dance of life.' The real function of the dance is metamorphosis."

Whatever I do is done out of sheer joy; I drop my fruits like a ripe tree. What the general reader or the critic makes of them is not my concern.

Why are we so full of restraint? Why do we not give in all directions? Is it fear of losing ourselves? Until we do lose ourselves there is no hope of finding ourselves.

I tell you, struggle is what is missing in the lives of most young people today. If they think I'm going to support them while they create great works of art, then they've missed the point of my work, of my life! In the process of becoming a writer or an artist one has to be willing to starve. Struggle is the most invaluable experience of all. Suffering seems to be the inevitable fate of the creative sensitive types. Poverty, disease, death, unrequited love affairs, and disappointments of every sort fan the flame of the artistic spirit. The greatest works of art were not created by spoiled brats. They were born for the most part out of a sense of despair, and if not despair then just plain hard work. Somewhere along the line the artist learns the art of transformation.

All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without benefit of experience.

Sois ce que tu es, seulemen, t sois le de toute ton âme.....Celui qui lit avec d'autres yeux que ceux de son moi le plus intime, ne lit pas.... Le regard intérieur transperce les murs, déchiffre toutes les écritures. Ce n'est pas l'oeil qui lit, ni qui critiqque, mais un oeil qui renseigne. Il ne reçoit pas de lumière de l'extérieur, il la prodigue. La Lumière et aussi la joie. La Lumière et la Joie ouvrent le Monde et le révèlant tel qu'il est : une Ineffable Beauté et création sans fin

Imagination is the voice of daring. If there is anything Godlike about God it is that. He dared to imagine everything.

Madness is tonic and invigorating. It makes the sane more sane. The only ones who are unable to profit by it are the insane.

Sin, guilt, neurosis; they are one and the same, the fruit of the tree of knowledge.

What we all hope in reaching for a book, is to meet a man of our own heart, to experience tragedies and delights which we ourselves lack the courage to invite, to dream dreams which will render life more hallucinating, perhaps also to discover a philosophy of life which will make us more adequate in meeting the trials and ordeals which beset us. To merely add to our store of knowledge or improve our culture, whatever that may mean, seems worthless to me.

An artist is always alone - if he is an artist. No, what the artist needs is loneliness.

There is no salvation in becoming adapted to a world which is crazy.

The waking mind is the least serviceable in the arts.

Instead of asking 'How much damage will the work in question bring about?' why not ask 'How much good? How much joy?'

The worst sin that can be committed against the artist is to take him at his word, to see in his work a fulfillment instead of an horizon.

What does it matter how one comes by the truth so long as one pounces upon it and lives by it?

Art is only a means to life, to the life more abundant. It is not in itself the life more abundant. It merely points the way, something which is overlooked not only by the public, but very often by the artist himself. In becoming an end it defeats itself.

In this age, which believes that there is a short cut to everything, the greatest lesson to be learned is that the most difficult way is, in the long run, the easiest.

Whatever needs to be maintained through force is doomed.

Any genuine philosophy leads to action and from action back again to wonder, to the enduring fact of mystery.

And what is the potential man, after all? Is he not the sum of all that is human? Divine, in other words?

If I am against the condition of the world, it is not because I am a moralist - it is because I want to laugh more.

--

« Ma définition de la peinture, c’est qu’elle est une recherche, comme n’importe quel travail créateur. En musique, on frappe une note qui en entraîne une autre. Une chose détermine la suivante. D’un point de vue philosophique, l’idée est que l’on vit d’instant en instant. Ce faisant, chaque instant décide du suivant. On ne doit pas être cinq pas en avant, rien qu’un seul, le suivant. Et si l’on s’en tient à cela, on est toujours dans la bonne voie. »

--

« Aujourd’hui, tous semblent n’être animés que par la peur, presque exclusivement. On craint même ce qui est bon, ce qui est sain, ce qui est joyeux. […] Dans le monde de la veille, menotté, contraint, paralysé par toutes sortes de peurs, menacé à chaque pas de châtiments réels ou imaginaires, il n’est presque pas de désir que nous cherchions à exprimer qui ne nous semble injuste ou mauvais. […] Quand nos désirs sont réprimés ou refoulés, la vie devient mesquine, laide, vicieuse et comme la mort. […] Rien n’a jamais été accompli en se contraignant, se réprimant, se liant et s’entravant les uns les autres. Ce n’est pas ainsi qu’on élimine le crime, la guerre, pas plus que la cupidité ou la luxure, la malice ou l’envie. »

--

"Seule la Sagesse est éternellement renouvelable. Mais de la Sagesse de la vie, l'homme d'aujourd'hui ne connaît pas grand chose. Il se cramponne à des illusions, à des idéaux, à des croyances...J'ai découveret enfin, que Tout n'était qu'Un..... De quels prodigieux détours est donc formé le cours de notre existence !...Nous essayons d'éviter les marécages et les jungles, nous recherchons désespérèment à échapper à la solitude ou au désert, nous nous attachons à des chefs, nous adorons des dieux, au lieu du Dieu Unique, nous nous perdons dans un labyrinthe sans issue....Nous ne sommes pas des individus (en parlant des américains), et pas davantage les membres d'une grande collectivité. Nous ne sommes ni des démocrates, ni des communistes, ni des anrchistes. Nous sommes une foule indisciplinée et notre signe distinctif est la vulgarité...."