Quotes

What it says on the tin.

[disharmonious]

Trust no friend without faults, and love a woman, but no angel.

Doris Lessing (via disharmonious)

[disharmonious]

Dance first. Think later. It’s the natural order.

Samuel Beckett Samuel Beckett (born April 13, 1906) first grew close to his future wife, Suzanne Deschevaux-Dumesnil, while recovering from a near-fatal stabbing in Paris. (via disharmonious)

[disharmonious]

She refused to be bored chiefly because she wasn’t boring.

Zelda Fitzgerald March 10, 1948: Novelist, painter, and dancer Zelda Fitzgerald and her husband, F. Scott, were the “It” literary couple of the Jazz Age. Zelda was later diagnosed with schizophrenia and died in a hospital fire 67 years ago today. (via disharmonious)

[disharmonious]

Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing.

Kenneth Grahame British writer Kenneth Grahame (born March 8, 1859) told his son, Alistair, bedtime stories about the adventures of Mr. Toad and his best friends, Badger, Ratty, and Mole. He later published those stories as The Wind in the Willows. (via disharmonious)

[disharmonious]

We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience.

Martin Luther King Jr. March 7, 1965: The first civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery began 50 years ago today. Demonstrators met with brutal force from state and local lawmen and footage of the violent clashes finally shifted public opinion. (via disharmonious)

[disharmonious]

The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.

Dr. Seuss Theodor Geisel (born March 2, 1904), a.k.a. Dr. Seuss, acquired his pseudonym as a student at Dartmouth. He was caught drinking with friends and, as punishment, was forced to drop out of his extracurricular activities. That didn’t stop him from continuing to write for the campus humor magazine using his mother’s maiden name, Seuss. (via disharmonious)

[disharmonious]

When I discover who I am, I’ll be free.

 Ralph Ellison

Ralph Ellison (born March 1, 1914) is best known for his novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953.

(via disharmonious)

[disharmonious]

That which you believe becomes your world.”

Richard Matheson Fantasy, horror, and sci-fi writer Richard Matheson (born February 20, 1926) worked on The Twilight Zone and wrote I Am Legend. Both Stephen King and Anne Rice cite him as an early influence on their work. (via disharmonious)

[disharmonious]

To put everything in balance is good, to put everything in harmony is better.”

Victor Hugo Victor Hugo (born February 26, 1802) is partially responsible for the preservation of pre-Renaissance buildings in France. With the popularity of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, tourists poured in to the City of Paris to visit the crumbling Cathedral of Notre Dame, leading to its eventual restoration (via disharmonious)

[disharmonious]

A word has power in and of itself. It comes from nothing into sound and meaning; it gives origin to all things.”

N. Scott Momaday Happy 81st birthday, N. Scott Momaday! The writer tapped into his Kiowa heritage and his experiences at Jemez Pueblo to write House Made of Dawn, which won a Pulitzer Prize and spawned a renaissance of books by Native Americans. (via disharmonious)

[disharmonious]

Day and night I always dream with open eyes.”

José Martí José Martí (born February 28, 1853) was the voice of Cuban independence from Spanish rule. His career as a revolutionary began young—at 15 he was writing political poetry and by 16 he had been jailed for treason (via disharmonious)

[disharmonious]

Every grain of experience is food for the greedy growing soul of the artist.

Anthony Burgess When British author Anthony Burgess (born February 25, 1917) sold A Clockwork Orange to a U.S. publisher, he allowed them to cut out the last chapter, in which the anti-hero has a change of mind and rejects violence. Burgess regretted that cut when the U.S. version became a bestseller thanks to Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation (via disharmonious)

[disharmonious]

Believe in life! Always human beings will progress to greater, broader, and fuller life.

W.E.B. Du Bois Historian, activist, and writer W.E.B. Du Bois (born February 23, 1868) cofounded the NAACP and wrote The Souls of Black Folk, a collection of essays that is considered a seminal work of African-American literature (via disharmonious)

[disharmonious]

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

Steve Jobs

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs (born February 24, 1955) was adopted as a baby but reunited with his biological mother when he was 31. Jobs also met his sister, the author Mona Simpson, who later wrote a novel based on his life, A Regular Guy.

(via disharmonious)

[disharmonious]

Everyone forgets Icarus also flew.

Jack Gilbert (via disharmonious)

[disharmonious]

All I ever really want to know is how other people are making it through life- where do they put their body, hour by hour, and how do they cope inside of it.

Miranda July (via disharmonious)

[disharmonious]

For me, literacy means freedom. For the individual and for society.

LeVar Burton (via disharmonious)