#us

I am drawn to Tom Sawyer Island because a tribute to Mark Twain would not be out of place in a theme park of my own design. Should Vowell World ever get enough investors, I'm going to stick my Tom Sawyer Island in Love and Death in the American Novel Land right between the Jay Gatsby Swimming Pool and Tom Joad's Dust Bowl Lanes, a Depression-themed bowling alley renting artfully worn-out shoes. ↗

— Sarah Vowell

#as-i-lay-dying #great-gatsby #humor #mark-twain #tom-sawyer

And what impels him to repeat this process at every single lesson, and, with the same remorseless insistence, to make his pupils copy it without the least alteration? He sticks to this traditional custom because he knows from experience that the preparations for working put him simultaneously in the right frame of mind for creating. The meditative repose in which he performs them gives him that vital loosening and equability of all his powers, that collectedness and presence of mind, without which no right work can be done. ↗

— Eugen Herrigel

#work #zen #art

People err who think my art comes easily to me. I assure you, dear friend, nobody has devoted so much time and thought to compositions as I. There is not a famous master whose music I have not industriously studied through many times. ↗

— Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

#genius #inspirational #art

My attitude is that if you push me towards something that you think is a weakness, then I will turn that perceived weakness into a strength. ↗

— Michael Jordan

#i #into #me #perceived #push

It was the hardest boyfriend I ever had to break up with [referring to crystal methamphetamines] ↗

— Fergie

#crystal-meth #drugs #female #life #musician

Is my paranoia getting completely out of hand, or are you mongoloids really talking about me? ↗

— John Kennedy Toole

#ass #attitude #contempt #curmudgeon #hilarious

But what are loyalty and caring really worth?" "To me? Everything. ↗

— Richelle Mead

#caring #friendship #inspirational-attitude #life #loving-others

If my attitude be on of fear, not faith, about the one who has disappointed me; if I say “Just what I expected,” if a fall occurs, then I know nothing of Calvary Love. ↗

— Amy Carmichael

#disappointment #distrust #failure #attitude

Realize that "I Can't" usually means "I won't"! ↗

— Tae Yun Kim

#famous-quotes #inspirational-quotes #philosophy #positive-attitude #attitude

Antisemitism is unique among religious hatreds. It is a racist conspiracy theory fashioned for the needs of messianic and brutal rulers, as dictators from the Tsars to the Islamists via the Nazis have shown. Many other alleged religious 'hatreds' are not hatreds in the true sense. If I criticise Islamic, Orthodox Jewish or Catholic attitudes towards women, for instance, and I'm accused of being a bigot, I shrug and say it is not bigoted to oppose bigotry. ↗

— Nick Cohen

#bigotry #catholicism #conspiracy-theories #dictatorship #feminism