Quotes: Sue Monk Kidd

"The soul often speaks through longing. It manifests like a restlessness. And when the soul longs, it's trying to tell you something. And I think the soul speaks through what pulls us. That allure. The longing. The restlessness."

–– Sue Monk Kidd (b. 1948), American writer 

via: Sketchbook A, 2018, p. 61.

Quotes: Charles Dickens

"Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration." 

–– Charles Dickens (1812-1870), British writer and social critic

via: Sketchbook 23, 2014, p. 18. 

Quotes: Rabbi David Zeller

"Often it takes a system to break down for something totally new to break forth." 

–– Rabbi David Zeller (1936-2007), American author, teacher, counsellor, singer songwriter 

Source: Scared Sacred documentary 

via: Sketchbook 23, 2014, p. 121. 

Quotes: Kenneth Goldsmith

"If you work on something a little bit every day, you end up with something that is massive." 

–– Kenneth Goldsmith (b. 1961), American poet and critic 

via: Sketchbook 23, 2014, p. 120.

Quotes: Diane Arbus

"My favourite thing is to go where I've never been." 

–– Diane Arbus (1923-1971), American photographer 

via: Sketchbook 23, 2014, p. 111.

Quotes: Sir Terence Conran

"Be ruthless with your possessions – you cannot afford to waste any space on redundant clutter. Take everything out of your home and only put back in the things you need or love. You will be surprised at how much space you save and how good you feel." 

–– Sir Terence Conran (1931-2020), English designer, restauranteur, retailer, and writer 

via: Sketchbook 23, 2014, p. 91. 

Quotes: Roy Azdak

"Good art is not what it looks like, but what it does."

–– Roy Azdak (1927-1987), British contemporary sculptor and photographer 

via: Sketchbook 23, 2014, p. 82.

Quotes: Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The reward of a thing well done, is to have done it." 

–– Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), American philosopher and writer 

via: Sketchbook 23, 2014, p. 80. 

Quotes: Sandra Brownlee

"You have to be comfortable with uncertainty. You keep going and it becomes clear." 

–– Sandra Brownlee (b. 1948), Canadian visual artist, educator, and winner of the Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts, 2014

via: Sketchbook 23, 2014, p. 44.

Quotes: Corita Kent

"Art does not come from thinking but from responding." 

–– Corita Kent (1918-1986), American artist, designer, educator & former Roman Catholic nun 

via: Sketchbook 23, 2014, p. 40.

Quotes: André Gide

"One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time." 

–– André Gide (1869-1951), French writer 

via: Sketchbook 23, 2014, p. 38. 

Quotes: Garth Brooks

"Too much credit is given to the end result. The true lesson is in the struggle that takes place between the dream and reality. That struggle is a thing called life." 

–– Garth Brooks (b. 1962), American country music singer and songwriter

via: Sketchbook 23, 2014, p. 15. 

Quotes: George Eliot

"It's never too late to be what you might have been." 

–– George Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann Evans (1819-1880), British novelist, poet, journalist, translator 

via: Sketchbook 23, 2014, p. 14.

Quotes: Meredith Grey from Grey's Anatomy

"Sometimes, the key to making progress is to recognize how to take that very first step. Then you start your journey. You hope for the best and you stick with it, day in and day out. Even if you're tired, even if you want to walk away. You don't. Because you are a pioneer. But nobody ever said it'd be easy." 

–– Meredith Grey, character from the TV series Grey's Anatomy, Episode 10.11 "Man on the Moon." 

via: Sketchbook 23, 2014, p. 13. 

Quotes: Anna Kamieńska

Small Things

It usually starts taking shape

from one word

reveals itself in one smile

sometimes in the blue glint of eyeglasses

in a trampled daisy

in a splash of light on a path

in quivering carrot leaves

in a bunch of parsley

It comes from laundry hung on a balcony

from hands thrust into dough

It seeps through closed eyelids

as through the prison wall of things of objects

of faces of landscapes

It's when you slice bread

when you pour out some tea

It comes from a broom from a shopping bag

from peeling new potatoes

from a drop of blood from the prick of a needle

when making panties for a child

or sewing a button on a husband's burial shirt

It comes of toil out of care

out of the immense fatigue in the evening

out of a tear wiped away

out of a prayer broken off in mid-word by sleep

It's not from the grand

but from the tiny thing

that it grows enormous

as if Someone was building Eternity

as a swallow its nest

out of clumps of moments

–– Anna Kamieńska (1920-1986), Polish poet, writer, translator, literary critic 

via: Sketchbook 22, 2014, p. 98.

Quotes: D.W. Winnicott

"Artists are people driven by the tension between the desire to communicate and the desire to hide." 

–– Donald Woods Winnicott (1896-1971) British paediatrician and psychoanalyst 

via Sketchbook 22, 2014, p. 93.

Quotes: Rūmī

 "Let silence take you to the core of life."

–– Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī (1207-1273), Persian poet and Sufi mystic; interpretation by Coleman Barks (b. 1937), American poet 

via: Sketchbook 22, 2014, p. 93.

Meraki

meraki [may-ray-kee] (Greek) n. the soul, creativity or love put into something, the essence of yourself that is put into your work. 

via: Sketchbook 22, 2013, p. 51.

Quotes: William Hazlitt

"I would like to spend my whole life travelling, if I could borrow another life to spend at home." 

–– William Hazlitt (1778-1830), British writer, literary critic and philosopher 

via: Sketchbook 22, 2013, p. 50. 

Quotes: Jun'ichirō Tanizaki

"Beauty lies not in objects, but in the interaction between the shadow and the light created by objects." 

– Jun'ichirō Tanizaki (1886-1965), Japanese Author

Source: In Praise of Shadows, 1933. 

via: Sketchbook 22, 2013, p. 46.

Quotes: Elizabeth Catlett

"I have always wanted my art to service my people –– to reflect us, to relate to us, to stimulate us, to make us aware of our potential." 

–– Elizabeth Catlett (1915-2012), African American artist 

Source: Lilly Wei. "Her Target was Injustice." ARTnews, June 2012: pp. 40. 

via: Sketchbook 22, 2013, p. 29.

Quotes: unknown

"Fate leads the willing and drags along the reluctant." 

–– unknown 

via: Sketchbook A, 2018, p. 72. 

Quotes: Sue Bender

"It's the enjoyment of every step in the process of doing; everything, not only the isolated piece we label art. If accomplishing it is the only goal, all that it takes to reach that goal is too slow, too fatiguing an obstacle to what you want to achieve. If you want to rush the accomplishment, it is an inevitable disappointment. Then you rush to something. The disappointment is reaped over and over again. But if every step is pleasant, then the accomplishment becomes even more because it is nourished by what is going on." 

–– Sue Bender (b. 1933), American writer, family therapist and ceramic artist 

Source: Sue Bender. Plain and Simple.

via: Sketchbook A, 2018, p. 71. 

Quotes: Gail Bowen

"Robertson Davies wrote that when fate sends a message, it is spiritual suicide to resist." 

–– Gail Bowen (b. 1942), Canadian author and playwright 

Source: Gail Bowen. The Gifted. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2013, p. 30.

via: Sketchbook A, 2018, p. 69.

Quotes: unknown

"We don't know how strong we are until being strong is the only option." –– unknown 

Source: Gail Bowen. Kaleidoscope. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2012; p. 289. 

via: Sketchbook A, 2018, p. 68.

Quotes: Bashō

"Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home." 

–– Bashō (1644-1694), Japanese poet 

via: Sketchbook A, 2018, p. 65.

Quotes: Sandra Day O'Connor

"We don't accomplish anything in this world alone, and whatever happens is the result of the whole tapestry of one's life and all the weavings of individual threads from one to another that creates something." 

–– Sandra Day O'Connor (b. 1930), American retired politician and attorney 

via: Sketchbook A, 2018, p. 64.

Quotes: Louise Bourgeois

"The act of sewing is a process of emotional repair." 

–– Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010), French-American artist 

via: Sketchbook A, 2018, p. 63. 

Quotes: Virginia Woolf

"Happiness is in the quiet, ordinary things. A table, a chair, a book with a paper-knife stuck in between the pages. And the petal falling from the rose, and the light flickering as we sit silent." 

–– Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), English writer, critic, & publisher 

via: Sketchbook A, 2018, p. 62.

Quotes: Mark Strand

"When I read poetry, I want to feel myself suddenly larger ... in touch with – or at least close to – what I deem magical, astonishing. I want to experience a kind of wonderment. And when you report back to your own daily world after experiencing the strangeness of a world sort of recombined and reordered in the depths of a poet's soul, the world looks fresher somehow. Your daily world has been taken out of context. It has the voice of the poet written all over it, for one thing, but it also seems suddenly more alive – not as routinely there." 

–– Mark Strand (1934-2014), Canadian-born American poet, essayist, translator 

Source: The Art of Poetry No. 77

via: Sketchbook A, 2018, p. 62.