Holiday Horse, Tumblr Days, and a Giraffe
My life is exceptionally dull right now, although it is the run up to hollybags, so there will be…
(Source: igorusha, via thingsorganizedneatly)
Patti Smith’s advice to young artists
A writer or any artist can’t expect to be embraced by the people. I’ve done records where it seemed like no one listened to them. You write poetry books that maybe 50 people read. And you just keep doing your work because you have to, because it’s your calling.
But it’s beautiful to be embraced by the people.
Some people have said to me, “Well, don’t you think that kind of success spoils one as an artist? If you’re a punk rocker, you don’t want to have a hit record…”
And I say to them, “Fuck you!”
One does their work for the people. And the more people you can touch, the more wonderful it is. You don’t do your work and say, “I only want the cool people to read it.” You want everyone to be transported, or hopefully inspired by it.
When I was really young, William Burroughs told me, “Build a good name. Keep your name clean. Don’t make compromises. Don’t worry about making a bunch of money or being successful. Be concerned with doing good work. And make the right choices and protect your work. And if you can build a good name, eventually that name will be its own currency.”
So, so good.
(via workman)
“ Following your bliss is useless. People are passionate about a lot of stupid things. It’s not a great mantra. Meaning, I think, comes from doing a full accounting of your limitations and assets, your passions and your weaknesses, your belief system and your fears, and then rubbing up against the things that cause you to panic, like an allergy skin scratch test, and find out what your reactions are. Once you figure out how you can contribute to the greater good, once you’re able even to define that, you take that information and pour yourself into one direction. Regardless of discomfort or regrets or what-ifs. (And then doing that over and over again, until death.) That does not fit on a T-shirt. That to me is more important than bliss, which would really just lead me back into bed, maybe with a bowl of corn flakes… ”
Jessa Crispin (via austinkleon)
(via austinkleon)
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“ My brain hums with scraps of poetry and madness. ”
Virginia Woolf, Selected Letters (via violentwavesofemotion, palmofmyhands)
(via jbe200quilts)
“ … sometimes blocked in, sometimes reaching out,
one moment your life is a stone in you, the next a star. ”
Rainer Maria Rilke, from “Sunset” in Selected Poems, trans. Robert Bly (via proustitute)
(Source: write-on-red, via youlittletealeaf)
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“ I’d woken up early and I took a long time getting ready to exist. ”
The Book of Disquiet, Fernando Pessoa (via delicateswans)
(via fuckyeahexistentialism)
