I walk up the stairs to my fourth-floor apartment, all alone. I let myself into my tiny little studio, all alone. I shut the door behind me. Another early bedtime in Rome. Another long night's sleep ahead of me, with nobody and nothing in my bed except a pile of Italian phrase books and dictionaries. I am alone, I am all alone, I am completely alone. Grasping this reality, I let go of my bag, drop to my knees, and press my forehead against the floor. There I offer up to the universe a fervent prayer of thanks. First in English. Then in Italian. And then - just to get the point across - in Sanskrit. And since I am already down there in supplication on the floor, let me hold that position as I reach back in time three years earlier to the moment where this entire story began - a moment that also found me in this exact same posture: on my knees, on a floor, praying.
Elizabeth GilbertRelated topics
across apartment bag bed begin behind door drop early english entire found floor forehead grasping hold moment nobody nothing offer point position posture praying prayer reach shut sleep story studio supplication thanks three walk years RomeRelated quotes
Nobody at Magnum decides for the other what he should do and everyone is free to tell someone else: "Well, what about this story? I don't like it for this and that reason - because of this picture.” It is extremely fruitful to have somebody to talk to as an equal. This give and take is a most profitable thing because we keep learning from each other. I keep learning from the younger members just as I learned from Bob [Robert] Capa and Chim [David Seymour] how to make picture stories. Cornell Capa, for instance, has a very keen journalistic sense; and as for the other photographer, each makes his own contribution. Everybody in Magnum has full freedom; there's no doctrine, there is no school, but there is something that unites all of us very strongly - I can't define it; it may be a certain feeling of freedom and a respect for reality.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
And then I awoke and yet continued to dream... painting constantly appeared to me as the one and only possible achievement. I thought of my grand old friend Henri Rousseau [French Primitive painter, died in 1910] that Homer in the porter's lodge whose prehistoric dreams have sometimes brought me near the gods. I saluted him in my dream. Near him I saw William Blake, noble emanation of English genius...'Have confidence in your objects,' he said, 'do not let yourself be intimidated by the horror of the world. Everything is ordered and correct and must fulfill its destiny in order to attain perfection. Seek this path'... I awoke and found myself in Holland in the midst of boundless world turmoil. But my belief in the final release and absolution of all things, whether they please or torment, was newly strengthened. Peacefully I laid my head among the pillows... to sleep, and dream, again.
Max Beckmann
Innumerable men had passed by, across this Universe, with a dumb vague wonder, such as the very animals may feel; or with a painful, fruitlessly inquiring wonder, such as men only feel;-till the great Thinker came, the original man, the Seer; whose shaped spoken Thought awakes the slumbering capability of all into Thought. It is ever the way with the Thinker, the spiritual Hero. What he says, all men were not far from saying, were longing to say. The Thoughts of all start up, as from painful enchanted sleep, round his Thought; answering to it, Yes, even so! Joyful to men as the dawning of day from night;-is it not, indeed, the awakening for them from no-being into being, from death into life? We still honor such a man; call him Poet, Genius, and so forth: but to these wild men he was a very magician, a worker of miraculous unexpected blessing for them; a Prophet, a God!
Thomas Carlyle
This is worse than when Paul D came to 124 and she cried helplessly into the stove. This is worse. Then it was for herself. Now she is crying because she has no self... She doesn't move to open the door because there is no world out there. She decides to stay in the cold house and let the dark swallow her like the minnows of light above. She won't put up with another leaving, another trick. Waking up to find one brother then another not at the bottom of the bed, his foot jabbing her spine. Sitting at the table eating turnips and saving the liquor for her grandmother to drink; her mother's hand on the keeping-room door and her voice saying, 'Baby Suggs is gone, Denver.' And when she got around to worrying about what would be the case if Sethe died or Paul D took her away, a dream-come-true comes true just to leave her on a pile of newspaper in the dark.
Toni Morrison
1963 is when prayer and Bible reading was taken out of the American school system. Anybody remember that? Madalyn Murray O'Hair? Her son, by the way, became a preacher. His mom used him to get prayer taken out. But in 1963, sexually transmitted diseases began to climb. This is for kids 10 to 14 years of age. 1963 is when divorce rates began to go up. By the way, premarital sex and divorce go hand and hand. If you don't trust 'em before you're married, you won't trust 'em after you're married. 1963 is when violent crimes began to increase. There's been nearly a 1000% increase in violent crimes. 1963 is when unwed birthrates began to incline. 100% increase for girls 10 to 14. By the way, pregnancies have increased 553%. SAT scores have dropped off incredibly since 1963. 1963 is when we saw an incredible rise of married couples living together in adultery. Teen suicide rate has gone crazy.
Kent Hovind