Turine Tran

If you want to really hurt you parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possible can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.

You might as well ask an artist to explain his art, or ask a poet to explain his poem. It defeats the purpose. The meaning is only clear thorough the search.

Art is purposiveness without purpose.

We have art so that we may not perish by the truth.

We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people.

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

To live at all is miracle enough.

If I were as rich as Trimalchio, I’d leave you some land or a ship. But I can only leave you what I had myself. I leave you poetry. I leave you the seasons, especially spring and summer. I leave you the wind, the sun. I leave you the sea, the good sea. The earth is good, too. The mountains, streams, and rivers. And the big clouds that move by, solemn and light. You’ll look at them and maybe remember our brief friendship. And I leave you the trees and their agile inhabitants. Love, tears, joy, stars, Encolpius. I leave you sounds, songs, noises. The voice of man, which is the most harmonious of music. I leave you…