The secret to so many artists living so long is that every painting is a new adventure. So, you see, they’re always looking ahead to something new and exciting. The secret is not to look back.
― Norman Rockwell
secret
Quote for Today: Glenn Haybittle
I thought of that lost book and all the memories it held and how it was just one of millions of objects in the world loaded with secret history which pass hands until eventually they excite nothing more than mild curiosity or, often, complete apathy. It was like all the sadness and loneliness of life resided in these objects. I realised the moment anything loses its context it becomes a husk.
― Glenn Haybittle, The Tree House
Public domain image via libreshot.com
Quote for Today: Maya Angelou
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I’m telling lies.
I say,
It’s in the reach of my arms,
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
Maya Angelou, “Phenomenal Woman”
Public Domain Image via PxHere
Quote for Today: Margaret Atwood
The structure of the house was hierarchical, with my grandfather at the top, but its secret life – the life of pie crusts, clean sheets, the box of rags in the linen closet, the loaves in the oven – was female. The house, and all the objects in it, crackled with static electricity; undertows washed through it, the air was heavy with things that were known but not spoken. Like a hollow log, a drum, a church, it amplified, so that conversations whispered in it sixty years ago can be half-heard even today.
― Margaret Atwood, “Significant Moments in the Life of My Mother”, Bluebeard’s Egg
Image: Mom and daughter doing housework by Julie de Graag (1877-1924). Original from the Rijks Museum. Digitally enhanced by rawpixel
Quote for Today: Václav Havel
We ask ourselves all kinds of questions, such as why does a peacock have such beautiful feathers, and we may answer that he needs the feathers to impress a female peacock, but then we ask ourselves, and why is there a peacock? And then we ask, why is there anything living? And then we ask, why is there anything at all? And if you tell some advocate of scientism that the answer is a secret, he will go white hot and write a book. But it is a secret. And the experience of living with the secret and thinking about it is in itself a kind of faith.
Public Domain Image via MaxPixel.com
Quote for Today: Bill Bryson
Distance changes utterly when you take the world on foot. A mile becomes a long way, two miles literally considerable, ten miles whopping, fifty miles at the very limits of conception. The world, you realize, is enormous in a way that only you and a small community of fellow hikers know. Planetary scale is your little secret.
―Bill Bryson, A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail
Public Domain Image via Pixabay
Quote for Today: Anaïs Nin
Jazz is the music of the body. The breath comes through brass. It is the body’s breath, and the strings’ wails and moans are echoes of the body’s music. It is the body’s vibrations which ripple from the fingers. And the mystery of the withheld theme, known to jazz musicians alone, is like the mystery of our secret life. We give to others only peripheral improvisations.
―Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 5: 1947-1955
Image © Joel Nilsson with CCLicense
Quote for Today: Ray Bradbury
As soon as things get difficult, I walk away. That’s the great secret of creativity. You treat ideas like cats: you make them follow you. If you try to approach a cat and pick it up, hell, it won’t let you do it. You’ve got to say, “Well, to hell with you.” And the cat says, “Wait a minute, he’s not behaving the way most humans do.” Then the cat follows you out of curiosity: “Well, what’s wrong with you that you don’t love me?”
Well, that’s what an idea is. See? You just say, “Well, hell, I don’t need depression. I don’t need worry. I don’t need to push.” The ideas will follow me. When they’re off guard, and ready to be born, I’ll turn around and grab them.
–Ray Bradbury, “Shooting Haiku in a Barrel”
Public Domain Image via goodfreephotos.com
Quote for Today: Mehmet Murat İldan
Do not always walk on the bridge; there is also a world under the bridge! Try different worlds; discover different worlds! Do something different!
Quote for Today: François Truffaut
I love the way she projects two facets: a visible persona and a subterranean one. She keeps her thoughts to herself; she seems to suggest that her secret, inner life is at least as significant as the appearance she gives.