For thousands of years, human beings have been obsessed with beauty, truth, love, honor, altruism, courage, social relationships, art, and God. They all go together as subjective experiences, and it's a straw man to set God up as the delusion. If he ...
For me, art is always a kind of theater. When I started the spot paintings, I made them as an endless series. But I was never serious about it being an endless series. It was just an implied endless series. The theater means you just have to make it ...
Imagine if all those kings and dukes hadn't commissioned those crazy cathedrals, paintings and music... we'd still be living in sticks and mud. Because none of those things made any economic sense. Human beings' capacity to 'waste time' is a miracle ...
This is part of the involuntary bargain we make with the world just by being alive. We get to experiences the splendor of nature, the beauty of art, the balm of love and the sheer joy of existence, always with the knowledge that illness, injury, natu...
My dad used to draw these great cartoon figures. His dream was being a cartoonist, but he never achieved it, and it kind of broke my heart. I think part of my interest in art had to do with his yearning for something he could never have.
Find a beautiful piece of art. If you fall in love with Van Gogh or Matisse or John Oliver Killens, or if you fall love with the music of Coltrane, the music of Aretha Franklin, or the music of Chopin - find some beautiful art and admire it, and real...
There have to be moments when you glimpse something decent, something life-affirming even in the most twisted character. That's where the real art lies. See, I always suspect characters who are painted as lovely, decent human beings. I would always q...
I think people should be given a test much like driver's tests as to whether they're capable of being parents! It's an art form. I talk a lot. And I think a lot. And I draw a lot. But never in a million years would I have been a parent. That's just w...
I think what makes the Byrds stand up all these years is the basis in folk music. Folk music, being a timeless art form, is the foundation of the Byrds. We were all from a folk background. We considered ourselves folk singers even when we strapped on...
One thing that took a while to really adjust to was, you do it for the the art, for the money, for being together and having a good time, but you do it for all those people out there who really care about the show. We are now talking about a show we ...
I want to hire someone to stand outside my door and knock three times, with each knock being three years apart. At the end of the nine years I’ll reply, “Who is it?” And without delay or reply, the person on the other side of the door is to fin...
Obedience to God’s Word begins by being determined to make no compromise with His ways. It requires a clear understanding that God’s rules and laws are for your benefit, and for you to do all you can to live by them.
I no longer think that laziness is all about being idle. I now know when I become lazy- when I stop learning new things, and cease to grow.
After about eight hours, I lose my focus and all of the sudden I find myself not being able to sleep at all. It’s as if I’ve temporarily lost my skill for laying still and doing nothing.
Animals remind us that all beings who walk, stand, swim, crawl, or fly are radiant, mysterious, and unique expressions of the Source. Every species, every culture, has it’s own genius.
I believe the happiness we feel in relation to animals is immensely significant. I believe it is absolutely central to our physical, psychological, and spiritual well-being.
Family likeness has often a deep sadness in it. Nature, that great tragic dramatist, knits us together by bone and muscle, and divides us by the subtler web of our brains; blends yearning and repulsion; and ties us by our heart-strings to the beings ...
While looking at a website for liposuction, I learned that it was a six-to eight-week recovery period, the clincher being that, during that time, I would under no circumstances be able to use street drugs. Obviously I had to think of a more realistic...
The obvious," Noah goes on, a little out of breath, "being that he is probably some super secret assassin or something. And I'm not as tough as I look." "That's OK," I tell him. "I'm way tougher than you look.
She has that quality, does the Hudson, as I imagine all great rivers do: the deep, abiding sense that those activities what take place on shore among human beings are of the moment, passing, and aren't the stories by way of which the greater tale of ...
This helping-people business was an attractive idea, I'll admit, because up to now I'd not done much more than be, and when I wasn't just being, I'd caused some pain, too.