Theo of Golden Quotes

“Sadness can make us bitter or wise. We get to choose.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“How is it, Theo wondered, that a piece of paper - a letter, a photo, a ticket stub, a sketch, a painting - is suddenly transformed by placing it in four bits of wood beneath a pane of glass? What does it mean that we place permanent boundaries around transient moments? What does it say of humankind that we take such trouble to freeze specific memories, that we devote such energy to capturing and preserving the "minute particulars" of our lives?”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“There is no virtue in advertising one’s sadness. But there is no wisdom in denying it either. And there is the beautiful possibility that great love can grow out of sadness if it is well-tended.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“God gave us faces so we can see each other better.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“the older I get, the more convinced I am that every hurt the world has ever known is somehow the fault of every person who ever lived. Maybe not directly and never entirely, but somehow, I fear, we own all of the world’s hurts together.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“do good, bestow kindness, strive for beauty, seek and find the river that leads to life everlasting, and draw from the fountain that never runs dry.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“the best portion of a good person’s life is ‘the little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“A man who loves all women loves no woman. A man who loves only one woman loves all women.’ Do you agree?”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“they’s justice and they’s mercy. If you not sure what to do and you gotta choose one or the other”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“My expertise in sadness is hard-earned. But I realize more and more that it is a gift. Living with sadness”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“Mr. Wordsworth, perhaps in a literature class at some point in your studies. He once wrote that the best portion of a good person’s life is ‘the little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“It’s hard enough to define what art is, much less ‘good art.’ I wonder if there is such a thing. Maybe there are just good responses. But I guess if a work of art makes us see something familiar in a new way or makes us feel something we ought to have felt all along or shows us our place in the world more clearly, maybe then it qualifies as ‘good.’ If it makes us better somehow, maybe that’s what gives it value.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“for anything to be good, truly good, there must be love in it. I’m not even sure I know fully what that means, but the older I get, the more I believe it. There must be love for the gift itself, love for the subject being depicted or the story being told, and love for the audience. Whether the art is sculpture, farming, teaching, lawmaking, medicine, music, or raising a child, if love is not in it — at the very heart of it — it might be skillful, marketable, or popular but I doubt it is truly good. Nothing is what it’s supposed to be if love is not at the core.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“for his date with a ten-year-old girl whose laughter was a murmuration and whose memory was a single star”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“But even old men have young memories.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“There is another teaching about kindness,” Theo said. “ ‘Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“And I learned something from Mr. Theo. God gave us faces so we can see each other better. I used to not look at people's faces so much. But I'm learning”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“It is another of life’s great mysteries that sadness and joy can coexist so compatibly with one another.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“faith, hope, and love endure, but the greatest of these is love.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“Perhaps I am mistaken but, at some point, if we are wise, we must all confront our sadness, our brokenness, our disappointment. I am quite certain that your portraits help some people, in a very tender and courteous way, to ask themselves, maybe for the first time, ‘Who is that person? What do I know to be true, really true, about that face?’ . . .”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“Motion is lotion.’ Old people need to move around, so they don’t get stiff. That’s why this will be good for you. Motion is lotion for your joints.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“If it makes us better somehow, maybe that’s what gives it value.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“One could almost hear the sound of stones dropping to the ground.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“..But for anything to be good, truly good, there must be love in it. .. There must be love for the gift itself, love for the subject being depicted or the story being told, and love for the audience. Whether the art is sculpture, farming, teaching, lawmaking, medicine, music, or raising a child, if love is not in it - at the very heart of it - it might be skillful, marketable, or popular but I doubt it is truly good. Nothing is what it is supposed to be if love is not at the core.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“He was moving forward in space and backward in time. His lungs filled”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“We’re just going to ride till we get somewhere.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden: A Novel

“Perhaps every son of Portugal has the sojourning spirit of Magellan in his blood.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“Life was too short for azaleas in black vases. The phrase “poisonous beauty” formed in his mind. He wondered if there might be other things that”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“Sadness might be many things”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“Unmet expectations have a clever way of showing up at every stage of life.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden