#constraints

The constraints of melodrama can be a great blessing, because they demand that all the characters involved - as absurd and extreme as they may initially seem - must stay utterly rooted in their own reality, or the whole project collapses. ↗

— Stanley Tucci

#because #blessing #characters #collapses #constraints

pour que tu sois libre de la liberté du chanteur qui improvise sur l'instrument à cordes, ne faut-il pas que je t'exerce d'abord les doigts et t'enseigne l'art du chanteur? Ce qui est guerre, contrainte et endurance. Et pour que tu sois libre de la liberté du montagnard, ne faut-il pas que tu aies exercé tes muscles, ce qui est guerre, contrainte et endurance? Et pour que tu sois libre de la liberté du poête, ne faut-il pas que tu aies exercé ton cerveau et forgé ton style, ce qui est guerre, contrainte et endurance? (chapitre CLII) ↗

— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

#freedom #art

Space, like time, engenders forgetfulness; but it does so by setting us bodily free from our surroundings and giving us back our primitive, unattached state ... Time, we say, is Lethe; but change of air is a similar draught, and, if it works less thoroughly, does so more quickly. ↗

— Thomas Mann

#body #constraints #forgetfulness #freedom #lethe

She understood the genre constraints, the decencies we were supposed to be observing. The morally cosy vision allows the embrace of monstrosity only as a reaction to suffering or as an act of rage against the Almighty. Vampire interviewee Louis is in despair at his brother’s death when he accepts Lestat’s offer. Frankenstein’s creature is driven to violence by the violence done to him. Even Lucifer’s rebellion emerges from the agony of injured pride. The message is clear: By all means become an abomination—but only while unhinged by grief or wrath. By rights, Talulla knew, she should have been orphaned or raped or paedophilically abused or terminally ill or suicidally depressed or furious at God for her mother’s death or at any rate in some way deranged if she was to be excused for not having killed herself, once it became apparent that she’d have to murder and devour people in order to stay alive. The mere desire to stay alive, in whatever form you’re lumbered with—werewolf, vampire, Father of Lies—really couldn’t be considered a morally sufficient rationale. And yet here she was, staying alive. You love life because life’s all there is. ↗

— Glen Duncan

#death

There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect. ↗

— Ronald Reagan

#barriers #constraints #erect #except #human

What was the freedom to which the adult human being rose in the morning, if each act was held back or inspired by the overpowering ghost of a little child? ↗

— Delmore Schwartz

#constraints #freedom #memory #dreams

I've never felt the constraints of social acceptability. ↗

— Joanna Lumley

#felt #i #never #social

Western women have been controlled by ideals and stereotypes as much as by material constraints. ↗

— Naomi Wolf

#constraints #controlled #ideals #material #much

Instead of freaking out about these constraints, embrace them. Let them guide you. Constraints drive innovation and force focus. Instead of trying to remove them, use them to your advantage. ↗

— 37 Signals

#constraints #management #business

...the imagination is unleashed by constraints. You break out of the box by stepping into shackles. ↗

— Jonah Lehrer

#creativity #imagination #limitations #imagination