Quotes: Jeanette Winterson

 "Life has an inside as well as an outside. Consumer culture directs all resources and attention to life on the outside. What happens to the inner life? Art is never a luxury because it stimulates and responds to the inner life. We are badly out of balance. I don't think of art/creativity as a substitute for anything else. I see it as a powerful expression of our humanity –– and on the side of humanity under threat. If we say art is a luxury, we might as well say that being human is a luxury."

–– Jeanette Winterson (b. 1959), British author 

via: Sketchbook 20, 2012, p. 65

Quotes: Normal?

"Nobody realizes that some people extend tremendous energy merely to be normal." – Albert Camus


"Why be happy when you could be normal?" – Jeanette Winterson, (title of her 2011 memoir)


"I live life in the margins of society and the rules of normal society don't apply to those who live on the fringe." – Tamara de Lempicka, Polish-Russian artistocrat & painter


"The trouble with normal is it always gets worse." – Bruce Cockburn


"My darling girl, when are you going to understand that 'normal' isn't a virtue? It rather denotes a lack of courage." – Stockard Channing as Frances Owens in Practical Magic