390 quotes found
“When men are rightfully occupied then their amusement grows out of their work as the color petals out of a fruitful garden.”
“A musician must make music an artist must paint a poet must write if he to be at peace with himself. What a man can be he must be.”
“Never desert your own line of talent. Be what nature intended you for and you will succeed.”
“It is not a dreamlike state but the somehow insulated state that a great musician achieves in a great performance. He's aware of where he is and what he's doing but his mind is on the playing of hi...”
“It requires a certain kind of mind to see beauty in a hamburger bun. Yet is it any more unusual to find grace in the texture and softly curved silhouette of a bun than to reflect lovingly on ... th...”
“I'm a salami writer. I try to write good salami but salami is salami.”
“Man is not born to solve the problems of the universe but to find out what he has to do ... within the limits of his comprehension.”
“The weakest among us has a gift however seemingly trivial which is peculiar to him and which worthily used will be a gift also to his race.”
“Every person is responsible for all the good within the scope of his abilities and for no more.”
“Me I'm just a hack. I'm just a schlep-per. I just do what I can do.”
“God requires a faithful fulfillment of the merest trifle given us to do rather than the most ardent aspiration to things to which we are not called.”
“When I was young I said to God "God tell me the mystery of the universe." But God answered "That knowledge is reserved for me alone." So I said "God tell me the mystery of the peanut." Then God sai...”
“Choose a subject equal to your abilities think carefully what your shoulders may refuse and what they are capable of bearing.”
“In efforts to soar above our nature we invariably fall below it.”
“The driver knows how much the ox can carry and keeps the ox from being overloaded. You know your way and your state of mind. Do not carry too much.”
“All I would tell people is to hold on to what was individual about themselves not to allow their ambition for success to cause them to try to imitate the success of others. You've got to find in on...”
“For me writing is the only thing that passes the three tests of metier: (i) when I'm doing it I don't feel that I should be doing something else instead (2) it produces a sense of accomplishment an...”
“My mother said to me "If you become a soldier you'll be a general if you become a monk you'll end up as the pope." Instead I became a painter and wound up as Picasso.”
“Abasement degradation is simply the manner of life of the man who has refused to be what it is his duty to be.”
“Different people have different duties assigned to them by Nature Nature has given one the power or the desire to do this the other that. Each bird must sing with his own throat.”
