Quotes: Claire McMillan

"I've been thinking about ritual," I said, handing her a book by Gurdjeff, who we'd recently discovered was a shared favourite. "That's all any ritual or ceremony is trying to do, to make manifest in the material world an intangible shift in spirit. So I've been thinking that anything can become ritual, painting, or writing, or cooking or making a bed. All of it transforms, makes clean. Making dinner, alchemizes disparate things into a whole. I feel like I am always transmuting things. Always changing them. All day long."

–– Claire McMillan, American author 

Source: Claire McMillan. Alchemy of a Blackbird. Toronto: Atria Books (Simon and Schuster), 2023; p. 165. 

via: Commonplace Book 2024, 2025, p. 35. 

Quotes: Ann-Marie MacDonald

"Illusion is a comfortable garment thrown over an uncomfortable truth which, left too long covered, must rot."

–– Ann-Marie MacDonald (b. 1958), Canadian playwright, author, actress, and broadcast host 

Source: Ann-Marie MacDonald. Fayne. Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2022; p. 681. 

via: Commonplace Book 2024, 2025, p. 33.

Quotes: Sheldon Kopp

"You are free to do whatever you like. You need only face the consequences."

 –– Sheldon Kopp (1929-1999), American psychotherapist and author 

via: Commonplace Book, 2024, 2025, p. 33.

Quotes: Claire McMillan

"Despite her exhaustion, Remedios felt the energy of novelty. The trees were different here, the streets, the smells; it enlivened her. She'd been forced into change for so long now that it felt comforting, even as she landed in a new country with nothing but a suitcase."

–– Claire McMillan, American author 

Source: Claire McMillan. Alchemy of a Blackbird. Toronto: Atria Books (Simon and Schuster), 2023; p. 132. 

via: Commonplace Book 2024, 2025, p. 35. 

Quotes: Marcus Aurelius

"Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present."

–– Marcus Aurelius (121-180 AD), Roman Emperor and Stoic Philosopher 

via: Commonplace Book 2024, 2025, p. 34.

Quotes: Søren Kierkegaard

"What is anxiety? It is the next day. With whom, then, does the pagan contend in anxiety? With himself, with a delusion, because the next day is a powerless nothing if you yourself do not give it your strength." 

–– Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), Danish theologian, philosopher, poet, and social critic 

via: Commonplace Book 2024, 2025, p. 34.

Quotes: Miss Marion Brook

 "You mustn't be afraid to fail or you'll never succeed." 

–– Miss Marion Brook, character on The Gilded Age 2.2 (American TV show)