Martin Amis

Love is an abstract noun, something nebulous. And yet love turns out to be the only part of us that is solid, as the world turns upside down and the screen goes black.

Style is not neutral; it gives moral directions.

And meanwhile time goes about its immemorial work of making everyone look and feel like shit.

Life is made of fear. Some people eat fear soup three times a day. Some people eat fear soup all the meals there are. I eat it sometimes. When they bring me fear soup to eat, I try not to eat it, I try to send it back. But sometimes I'm too afraid to and have to eat it anyway.

When the past is forgotten, the present is unforgettable.

Oh Christ, the exhaustion of not knowing anything. It's so tiring and hard on the nerves. It really takes it out of you, not knowing anything. You're given comedy and miss all the jokes. Every hour you get weaker. Sometimes, as I sit alone in my flat in London and stare at the window, I think how dismal it is, how heavy, to watch the rain and not know why it falls.”

Closure is a greasy little word which, moreover, describes a nonexistent condition. The truth, Venus, is that nobody gets over anything.

The universe is a million billion light-years wide, and every inch of it would kill you if you went there. This is the position of the universe with regards to human life.

Julio Cortázar

Come sleep with me: We will not make Love, Love will make us.

We walked without looking for us, but knowing that we were going to meet.

I think we all have a bit of that beautiful madness that keeps us going when everything around is so insanely sane.

n quoting others, we quote ourselves.

Books are still the only place in the house where you can still be calm.

She would smile and show no surprise, convinced as she was, the same as that, that casual meetings are apt to be just the opposite, and that people who make dates are the same kind who need lines on their writing paper, or who always squeeze up from the bottom on a tube of toothpaste. 

What many people call loving consists in choosing a woman and marrying her. They choose it, I swear, I've seen them. As if you could choose in love, as if it were not a lightning that breaks your bones and leaves you stuck in the middle of the yard. You will say that they choose it because they love it, I believe it is al vesre. Beatriz is not chosen, Julieta is not chosen. You do not choose the rain that is going to sink to your bones when you leave a concert. 

Ken Robinson

If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original.

The fact is that given the challenges we face, education doesn't need to be reformed -- it needs to be transformed. The key to this transformation is not to standardize education, but to personalize it, to build achievement on discovering the individual talents of each child, to put students in an environment where they want to learn and where they can naturally discover their true passions.

Creativity is as important as literacy.

Human resources are like natural resources; they're often buried deep. You have to go looking for them, they're not just lying around on the surface. You have to create the circumstances where they show themselves.

For most of us the problem isn’t that we aim too high and fail - it’s just the opposite - we aim too low and succeed.

Imagination is the source of every form of human achievement. And it's the one thing that I believe we are systematically jeopardizing in the way we educate our children and ourselves.

Curiosity is the engine of achievement.

Joseph Chilton Pearce

To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.

What we are teaches the child far more than what we say, so we must be what we want our children to become.

As for myself, however, today is the day, and I dare not wait for some slow cultural drift finally to pave the way that I might easily float into some nebulous social salvation. I cannot depend on 'them' 'out there' to order into coherency this small sphere of my only present now.

Seeing within changes one's outer vision.

An enormous force bends all lines into circles.

Painted into a corner, caught in a cul-de-sac, out on that final last-chance limb, life scrabbles around, searching for a new way out.

Junot Díaz

And that's when I know it's over. As soon as you start thinking about the beginning, it's the end.

But if these years have taught me anything it is this: you can never run away. Not ever. The only way out is in.

It's never the changes we want that change everything.

The half-life of love is forever.

Motherfuckers will read a book that’s one third Elvish, but put two sentences in Spanish and they [white people] think we’re taking over.

Success, after all, loves a witness, but failure can't exist without one.

She was the kind of girlfriend God gives you young, so you'll know loss the rest of your life.

If you didn't grow up like I did then you don't know, and if you don't know it's probably better you don't judge.

That’s life for you. All the happiness you gather to yourself, it will sweep away like it’s nothing. If you ask me I don’t think there are any such things as curses. I think there is only life. That’s enough.

Connor Franta

Race, gender, religion, sexuality, we are all people and that's it. We're all people. We're all equal.

Girls can be athletic. Guys can have feelings. Girls can be smart. Guys can be creative. And vice versa. Gender is specific only to your reproductive organs (and sometimes not even to those), not your interest, likes, dislikes, goals, and ambitions.

It’s okay. It may not seem like it right now, but you are going to be fine. I know it’s scary, but don’t be afraid. You are who you are, and you should love that person, and I don’t want anyone to have to go through 22 years of their life afraid to accept that.

I don’t want anyone to hold back who they are. It’s not okay… it’s not a good thing.

Question: Why does life have to feel like such a struggle at times? Answer: Because without the struggle, the triumphs wouldn’t taste as sweet.

I would rather have 1 amazing best friend than 100 decent regular friends. It's not about quantity, it's about quality.

Forget about self-image and self-judgment. It's about self-love, and no one teaches you that at school. No one teaches you that if you accept and love yourself, nothing and no one can touch you. 
This is the only face and body you're ever going to get, so be comfortable and happy in it. Own it. Own every aspect of who you are and present it to the world with the utmost pride.

Austin Kleon

If you ever find that you're the most talented person in the room, you need to find another room.

Draw the art you want to see, start the business you want to run, play the music you want to hear, write the books you want to read, build the products you want to use – do the work you want to see done.

You are, in fact, a mashup of what you choose to let into your life.

You don’t get to pick your family, but you can pick your teachers and you can pick your friends and you can pick the music you listen to and you can pick the books you read and you can pick the movies you see. You are, in fact, a mashup of what you choose to let into your life. You are the sum of your influences. The German writer Goethe said, "We are shaped and fashioned by what we love."

Creative people need time to just sit around and do nothing.

The artist is a collector. Not a hoarder, mind you, there's a difference: Hoarders collect indiscriminately, artists collect selectively. They only collect things that they really love

Be curious about the world in which you live. Look things up. Chase down every reference. Go deeper than anybody else--that's how you'll get ahead.

Octavia E. Butler

In order to rise
From its own ashes
A phoenix
First
Must
Burn.

When your rage is choking you, it is best to say nothing.

All that you touch
You Change.
All that you Change
Changes you.
The only lasting truth
is Change.
God
is Change.

In order to rise from its own ashes, a Phoenix first must burn.

First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you're inspired or not. Habit will help you finish and polish your stories. Inspiration won't. Habit is persistence in practice.

People have the right to call themselves whatever they like. That doesn't bother me. It's other people doing the calling that bothers me.

You don't start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it's good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. 
That's why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence.

All struggles are essentially power struggles. Who will rule? Who will lead? Who will define, refine, confine, design? Who will dominate? All struggles are essentially power struggles,and most are no more intellectual than two rams knocking their heads together.

Brenda Ueland

Everybody is talented because everybody who is human has something to express.

The imagination needs moodling,--long, inefficient happy idling, dawdling and puttering.

I learned...that inspiration does not come like a bolt, nor is it kinetic, energetic striving, but it comes into us slowly and quietly and all the time, though we must regularly and every day give it a little chance to start flowing, prime it with a little solitude and idleness.

I learned that you should feel when writing, not like Lord Byron on a mountain top, but like a child stringing beads in kindergarten - happy, absorbed and quietly putting one bead on after another. 

Everybody is original, if he tells the truth, if he speaks from himself. But it must be from his "true" self and not from the self he thinks he "should" be. 

No writing is a waste of time – no creative work where the feelings, the imagination, the intelligence must work. With every sentence you write, you have learned something. It has done you good.

Brené Brown

Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy—the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.

You are imperfect, you are wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging.

Authenticity is a collection of choices that we have to make every day. It's about the choice to show up and be real. The choice to be honest. The choice to let our true selves be seen.

Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change.

I define connection as the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued; when they can give and receive without judgment; and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship.

Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen.

Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.