Quotes: Bruce Lee

"Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one."

–– Bruce Lee (1940-1973), Hong Kong-American martial artist and actor 

via: Sketchbook O 15, 2024, p. 12.

Quotes: Anthony Doerr

"We don't write what we know exactly, but rather we write to know. Writing in that sense becomes better understood as a kind of prayer, a kind of inquiry, something best done over time, repetitively, day after day." 

–– Anthony Doerr, American writer 

Source: Austin Kleon Tumblr, Friday July 26, 2024.

via: Commonplace Book, 2022-2024, 2024, p. 189.

Quotes: Henri Matisse

"The essential thing is to work in a state of mind that approaches prayer." 

–– Henri Matisse (1869-1954), French visual artist

via: Sketchbook 32, 2022, p. 122. 

Quotes: Louise Erdrich

"To sew is to pray. Men don't understand this. They see the whole but they don't see the stitches. They don't see the speech of the creator in the work of the needle. We mend. We women turn things inside out and set things right. We salvage what we can of human garments and piece the rest into blankets. Sometimes our stitches stutter and slow. Only a woman's eye can tell. Other times, the tension in the stitches might be too tight because of tears, but only we know what emotion went into the making. Only women can hear the prayer. 

–– Louise Erdrich (b. 1954), American Ojibwe writer and enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians 

Source: Louise Erdrich. Four Souls. 2017.

Quotes: W.H. Auden

"To pray is to pay attention to something or someone other than oneself. Whenever a man so concentrates his attention ... on a landscape, a poem, a geometrical problem ... or the True God ... that he completely forgets his own ego and desires, he is praying." 

–– W.H. Auden (1907-1973), British-born American poet 

via Nitch.com

Women's quotes: Anne Hines

"Creating is a prayer comprised entirely of listening." 

–– Anne Hines, Canadian writer and minister

Quote from Anne Hines. Parting Gifts: Notes on Loss, Love, and Life. 2009, p. 62.

via Sketchbook 11, 2010, p. 33