#erin

When we refuse to work with our disappointment, we break the Precepts: rather than experience the disappointment, we resort to anger, greed, gossip, criticism. Yet it's the moment of being that disappointment which is fruitful; and, if we are not willing to do that, at least we should notice that we are not willing. The moment of disappointment in life is an incomparable gift that we receive many times a day if we're alert. This gift is always present in anyone's life, that moment when 'It's not the way I want it! ↗

— Charlotte Joko Beck

#disappointment #emotions #growth #life #suffering

Couldn't the wrong sort of living turn anyone mean? I remembered very well that one day back in Yoroido, a boy pushed me into a thorn bush near the pond. By the time I clawed my way out I was mad enough to bite through wood. If a few minutes of suffering could make me so angry, what would years of it do? Even stone can be worn down with enough rain. ↗

— Arthur Golden

#suffering #anger

In literature, too, we admire prose in which a small and astutely arranged set of words has been constructed to carry a large consignment of ideas. 'We all have strength enough to bear the misfortunes of others,' writes La Rochefoucauld in an aphorism which transports us with an energy and exactitude comparable to that of Maillard bridge. The Swiss engineer reduces the number of supports just as the French writer compacts into a single line what lesser minds might have taken pages to express. We delight in complexity to which genius has lent an appearance of simplicity. (p 207) ↗

— Alain de Botton

#engineering #literature #simplicity #words #writing

Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destiny. And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it's all over. ↗

— Octavia Butler

#art #being #destiny #friend #go

The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe. ↗

— Gustave Flaubert

#believe #discovering #writing #you

There doesn't seem like there should be an artful way to butcher a cow, but there is, and this is not it. ↗

— Maggie Stiefvater

#butchering #cows #craft #meat #art

Literature is the art of discovering something extraordinary about ordinary people, and saying with ordinary words something extraordinary. ↗

— Boris Pasternak

#art #discovering #extraordinary #literature #ordinary

Always suffer delusions of grandeur with your art. What you are unable to face will never hurt you ↗

— Ginnetta Correli

#failure #life #suffering #writing #art

A disciplined mind leads to happiness, and an undisciplined mind leads to suffering. ↗

— Dalai Lama XIV

#happiness #suffering #art

I love you, Lucien, but I am a muse, you are an artist, I am not here to make you comfortable. ↗

— Christopher Moore

#artists #muses #passion #suffering #art