A Glimpse of Utopia

It always comes back to the same necessity: go deep enough and there is a bedrock of truth, however hard.

Inspiration may be a form of superconsciousness, or perhaps of subconsciousness—I wouldn’t know. But I am sure it is the antithesis of self-consciousness.

Poetry often enters through the window of irrelevance.

A mind too active is no mind at all.

The events in our lives happen in a sequence in time, but in their significance to ourselves, they find their own order … the continuous thread of revelation.

Words are a form of action, capable of influencing change.

You need to claim the events of your life to make yourself yours.

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters, compared to what lies within us.

The purpose of art is not a rarified, intellectual distillate—it is life, intensified, brilliant life.

I paint not by sight but by faith. Faith gives you sight.

Why should we all use our creative power … ? Because there is nothing that makes people so generous, joyful, lively, bold and compassionate, so indifferent to fighting and the accumulation of objects and money.

Every blade of grass has its Angel that bends over it and whispers, “Grow, grow.”

Great improvisors are like priests. They are thinking only of their god.

What we play is life.

Creativity is harnessing universality and making it flow through your eyes.

If you hit the wrong note, it’s the next note that determines if it’s good or bad.