behind the painted veil

“Any time you sincerely want to make a change, the first thing you must do is to raise your standards. When people ask me what really changed my life, I tell them that absolutely the most important thing was changing what I demanded on myself. I wrote down all the things I would no longer accept in my life, all the things I would no longer tolerate, and all the things that I aspired to becoming.”

“I am awfully greedy; I want everything from life. I want to be a woman and to be a man, to have many friends and to have loneliness, to work much and write good books, to travel and enjoy myself, to be selfish and to be unselfish… You see, it is difficult to get all which I want. And then when I do not succeed I get mad with anger.”

“You wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.”

“If I’m an advocate for anything, it’s to move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river. The extent to which you can walk in someone else’s shoes or at least eat their food, it’s a plus for everybody. Open your mind, get up off the couch. Move.”

““…and then, I have nature and art and poetry, and if that is not enough, what is enough?””