Emma > Emma's Quotes

“He had a theory, Walt did, that the religious life, and all the agony that goes with it, is just something God sicks on people who have the gall to accuse him of having created an ugly world.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“As I went walking I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said "No Trespassing."
But on the other side it didn't say nothing,
That side was made for you and me.
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York island
From the Redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.”
― Woody Guthrie

“Stupid f***ing white man.”
― Jim Jarmusch

“Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery - celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from - it’s where you take them to."

[MovieMaker Magazine #53 - Winter, January 22, 2004 ]”
― Jim Jarmusch

“If anyone tells you there is only one way, their way, get as far away from them as possible, both physically and philosophically.”
― Jim Jarmusch

“Music, to me, is the most beautiful form, and I love film because film is very related to music. It moves by you in its own rhythm. It's not like reading a book or looking at a painting. It gives you its own time frame, like music, so they are very connected for me. But music to me is the biggest inspiration. When I get depressed, or anything, I go "think of all the music I haven't even heard yet!" So, it's the one thing. Imagine the world without music. Man, just hand me a gun, will you?”
― Jim Jarmusch

“Ghost Dog: In the words of the ancients, one should make his decision within the space of seven breaths. It is a matter of being determined and having the spirit to break through to the other side. ”
― Jim Jarmusch

“What do you know about music? You're not a lawyer.”
― John Lurie

“The revolution is just a T-shirt away.

- Waiting for the Great Leap Forward”
― Billy Bragg, A Lover Sings: Selected Lyrics

“A virtue never tested is no virtue at all.

- Must I Paint You a Picture”
― Billy Bragg, A Lover Sings: Selected Lyrics

“Because the space race is over
And I can't help but feel that we've all grown up too soon.

- The Space Race Is Over”
― Billy Bragg, A Lover Sings: Selected Lyrics

“Freedom is merely privilege extended
Unless enjoyed by one and all.

- The Internationale”
― Billy Bragg, A Lover Sings: Selected Lyrics

“In the beginning was the word, and primitive societies venerated poets second only to their leaders. A poet had the power to name and so to control; he was, literally, the living memory of a group or tribe who would perpetuate their history in song; his inspiration was god given and he was in effect a medium.”
― Kevin Crossley-Holland, The Norse Myths

“The thirst for something other than what we have…to bring something new, even if it is worse, some emotion, some sorrow; when our sensibility, which happiness has silenced like an idle harp, wants to resonate under some hand, even a rough one, and even if it might be broken by it.”
― Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way

“Have compassion for everyone you meet, even if they don't want it. What seems conceit, bad manners, or cynicism is always a sign of things no ears have heard, no eyes have seen.
You do not know what wars are going on down there where the spirit meets the bone.”
― Miller Williams

“She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her. She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight.”
― Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

“We mortals, men and women, devour many a disappointment between breakfast and dinner-time; keep back the tears and look a little pale about the lips, and in answer to inquiries say, "Oh, nothing!" Pride helps; and pride is not a bad thing when it only urges us to hide our hurts— not to hurt others.”
― George Eliot, Middlemarch

“If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence.”
― George Eliot, Middlemarch

“I came to the Greeks early, and I found answers in them. Greece's great men let all their acts turn on the immortality of the soul. We don't really act as if we believed in the soul's immortality and that's why we are where we are today.”
― Edith Hamilton

“Classicism, a brief, perfectly balanced instant of complete possession of forms; not a slow and monotonous application of ‘rules,’ but a pure, quick delight, like the acme of the Greeks, so delicate that the pointer of the scale scarcely trembles …”
― Henri Focillon, The Life of Forms in Art

“Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul. When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again. It's like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can't stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

“Oscar Wilde said that sunsets were not valued because we could not pay for sunsets. But Oscar Wilde was wrong; we can pay for sunsets. We can pay for them by not being Oscar Wilde.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.”
― T.S. Eliot

“They say best men are molded out of faults,
And, for the most, become much more the better
For being a little bad”
― William Shakespeare

“But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things.”
― T.S. Eliot